Mike Gascoyne has moved to downplay expectations for Spyker’s much-anticipated ‘B’ car.
The heavily updated single seater will appear for the first time in Turkey later this month, amid reports that it could be up to a second per lap quicker than the uncompetitive F8-VII model that regularly languishes at the rear of the formula one field.
But veteran Gascoyne, who is the Dutch team Spyker’s chief technical officer, cautioned that he thinks the ‘B’ car has been built up too much in the press.
“Exactly,” the Briton agreed. “If you could just suddenly chuck a car into the midfield, then everybody would be doing it. It’s not that easy.”
Despite trying to downplay expectations, however, Gascoyne admitted that the new car is a “reasonable step forward”.
“It’s a step forward, but only a small one, and we may well still qualify on the back row. But this time next year judge us by where we are,” he added.
