In Bahrain, there was a new element to the Fridays of each grand prix weekend as all teams now have to make all their upgrades publicly obvious in what Formula 1 chief Ross Brawn has called a “show and tell”
Prior to practice, each team must make the latest version of their cars available to the media along with a team representative, with a selection of teams each weekend then ordered to do the same after qualifying.
A list of updated parts is also published ahead of these events – which have been titled ‘automotive displays’.
Here’s what we learned about teams’ upgrades this weekend from the list issued ahead of the second such display on Friday in Jeddah.
Mercedes
There are new rear wing trim flaps that have been brought just to give greater options of downforce levels.
The cooling louvre area on top of the sidepod has been extended in anticipation of very high ambient temperatures here, and there are new front wing trims that reduce drag and downforce and shifts the aero balance up to 2% rearwards.
Red Bull
The RB18’s front brake ducts have been increased for greater brake cooling capacity.
There’s a different lower rear beam wing with lower drag than that seen so far and a lower drag rear wing described as ‘reduced depth in Z axis’ by the team. A different rear wing endplate design that’s appropriate to the lower downforce beam and main wing.
Ferrari
Ferrari has brought a lower downforce rear wing than used in Bahrain.
McLaren
No updates reported.
Alpine
Lower downforce rear wing, circuit-specific. Both cars will have the later spec sidepod used only on Alonso’s car in Bahrain after Ocon suffered a failure in practice.
AlphaTauri
The team has brought a lower downforce rear wing than in Bahrain.
Aston Martin
Rearmost trim stay on the engine cover deleted for drag reduction demands of the track and the halo winglets have been removed for the same reason.
Lower downforce rear wing and a metal stay from the gearbox to rear corner of the floor to give better control of porpoising.
Williams
Two extra cooling elements in the right-hand sidepod louvres. Lower downforce rear wing. The extra floor stays at the rear floor corner for porpoise control.
Alfa Romeo
A certain amount of aero profiling of the suspension arms is permitted under the regulations and Alfa has tweaked these at the rear to work in conjunction with new rear brake ducts to increase downforce. Different rear wing flaps to reduce downforce.
Haas
No developments reported.
