While Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin have brought minor changes to their cars this weekend, and Ferrari have no updates for their SF-23, AlphaTauri has introduced substantial revisions to its AT04.
The team which fell to last place in the constructors’ championship when Alexander Albon claimed seventh place for Williams in Canada are looking to strike back at their rivals’ home circuit.AlphaTauri’s changes include an extensively reshaped floor designed to generate more downforce, wider rear bodywork which the team believe will be less sensitive to the disturbed air produced by the front wheels, and alterations to the rear wing aimed at improving its efficiency.
Williams and McLaren both introduced significant upgrades on one of their cars in recent races. Logan Sargeant was moved onto the same new specification as Albon last week in Austria, while at McLaren this weekend Oscar Piastri will have the new parts used by his team mate at the Red Bull Ring.
Both teams also have further updates for their home race including new front wings. In McLaren’s case, this is accompanied by a reshaped nose and revisions to the rear corners, while Williams has brought a new rear wing designed for greater efficiency.
Among the front runners, Ferrari are continuing to focus attentions on their existing package, which showed promising signs in recent races. Red Bull have brought the latest of their periodic minor adjustments to the dominant RB19. This time they have slightly shrunk their front brake ducts to improve efficiency at a track which places a premium on it.
Since Mercedes brought the much-anticipated update to their W14 in Monaco, the team has generally been pleased with its progress, though it was disappointed with its performance at the Red Bull Ring. It also has a new front wing this weekend, which the team say is designed to work in conjunction with its recently upgraded floor, and should therefore bring a useful gain. Alpine has a new front wing as well with a distinctively curved upper flap.
2023 British Grand Prix F1 teams’ updates
The teams described the changes to their cars for this weekend’s race as follows.
Red Bull
Front corner
Reason for change: Circuit specific – cooling range
Difference: “Reduced intake and exit area brake duct within the wheel bodywork regulation. The Silverstone circuit offers a low braking energy level and as such allows for smaller area intakes and exits.”
Description: “Adapted to the existing inside brake drum face, the cap is reduced in span to shrink the area, same geometric change applies to the exit duct.”
Mercedes
Front wing endplate
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Sideview profile change and dive plane chamber reduced.”
Description: “Improved alignment of endplate and dive plane across all conditions, resulting in cleaner flow and redistributed vorticity – floor performance improved as a result.”
Front wing
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Change in chord distribution of front wing elements.”
Description: “Change in front wing chordwise and spanwise loading distribution resulting in redistribution of front wing wake downstream – improving flow to the bodywork and floor.”
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Alpine
Front wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Revised main plane, flap and front wing end plate.”
Description: “The new front wing gives better low-speed management of the wake and reduces losses inboard of the front tyre.”
McLaren
Front wing
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “New Front Wing Assembly”
Description: “A completely revised Front Wing assembly featuring new elements as well as endplate geometry, aiming at better flow control resulting in an increase of aerodynamic load.”
Nose
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “New Nose Assembly”
Description: “In conjunction with the aforementioned Front Wing, the Nose box geometry has been revised, in sympathy with geometric and aerodynamic changes.”
Rear corner
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Revised Rear Brake Duct Geometry”
Description: “The Rear Brake Duct external Winglet array has been revised, resulting an overall increase of local load produced by the assembly.”
Rear suspension
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Modified Rear Toe link shroud”
Description: “The Rear Toe link Shroud has been modified in conjunction with the revision of the rear corner geometry, in order to increase local load.”
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Alfa Romeo
Floor body
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Redesigned floor keel winglets, mid floor geometries”
Description: “This update is part of a wider set of changes to the floor to improve the aerodynamic flow of the car, maximising load during cornering.”
Floor fences
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Redesigned floor fences”
Description: “This update is part of a wider set of changes to the floor to improve the aerodynamic flow of the car, maximising load during cornering.”
Diffuser
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Redesigned diffuser expansion”
Description: “This update is part of a wider set of changes to the floor to improve the aerodynamic flow of the car, maximising load during cornering.”
Rear corner
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Redesigned rear brake duct”
Description: “Together with the updated floor, the new rear brake ducts help the aerodynamic efficiency of the car, maximising load during cornering.”
Rear suspension
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “Realigned rear suspension covers”
Description: “Together with the updated floor, the new suspension cover alignment helps the aerodynamic efficiency of the car, maximising load during cornering.”
Aston Martin
Front wing
Reason for change: Circuit specific – balance range
Difference: “New front wing flap has reduced chord and incidence compared to the versions previously used on the front wing introduced in Spain.”
Description: “With the reduced chord and incidence the front wing is less loaded so is used to balance the car at lower downforce rear wing levels.”
Rear corner
Reason for change: Circuit specific – cooling range
Difference: “New rear brake duct inlet and exit to increase disc and calliper cooling, with revised barrel face elements to suit the new layout.”
Description: “Inlet and exit have been developed to increase the internal mass flow through the brake duct so increasing the heat rejection from the system.”
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Haas
Front suspension
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “New design of the fairing of the group of suspension legs that merge into the front wheel shroud.”
Description: “To improve the flow of the wake released by the group of front suspension leg, an evolution spanwise of the surface has been studied. This new geometry will improve the impact with the surfaces of the front corner and the vertical fin.”
Front corner
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Front corner surface has been improved, with the inclusion of the duct and the vertical fin.”
Description: “A more advantageous shape of the duct in its inlet and outlet part has been changed together with the deflector that now can provide a more performing aerodynamic field.”
Beam wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “We will introduce a new rear wing assembly in the lower elements. They have been studied in conjunction with the new rear wing top element that we are using for a couple of races.”
Description: “Car efficiency has been improved with both rear wing profile elements of new concept. Some variations for the air foil design and the geometrical parameters distribution along the spa, have allowed to improve the flow at the rear part of the car and in particular respect the interference with the floor diffuser.”
AlphaTauri
Floor body
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous floor body, underfloor surfaces local to the forward floor fences have changed and the leading edge of the floor raised. Floor body roof changes local to the floor fences combine with fence geometry changes to generate stronger vorticity from fence shedding edges, which gives increased local load.”
Description: “Raising the floor leading edge increases mass flow to the underfloor, which increases floor loading.”
Floor fences
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to previous floor fences, their camber distributions have changed in sympathy with changes to the floor body roof surfaces.”
Description: “Floor fence changes and floor roof changes combine to give increased overall load as described above.”
Floor edge
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to previous floor edges, the new geometry modifies the rearward part of the floor edge wing and extends it inboard at its rearward extremity with a cut-out in the floor edge to suit.”
Description: “The extended floor edge wing acts as a trailing edge device to the main floor edge, lowering local pressure and giving better sealing of the floor for increased local load.”
Diffuser
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous diffuser, vertical sidewalls have been modified.”
Description: “The diffuser tail change increases outwash to keep rear tyre wakes further outboard, thereby reducing blockage at the diffuser exit for increased local load.”
Coke/engine cover
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous bodywork, its maximum width has been increased. The additional bodywork width generates higher static pressure which reduces the extent to which front wheel wake losses impinge onto the bodywork with yaw and steer. This generates more load from the floor”
Description: “The additional bodywork width generates higher static pressure which reduces the extent to which front wheel wake losses impinge onto the bodywork with yaw and steer. This generates more load from the floor edge due to improved onset flow quality.”
Rear suspension
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous rear brake drum, an extra winglet has been added behind the rear top wishbone.”
Description: “The winglet addition gives a small increase in local load generated by the brake duct assembly.”
Rear wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous medium downforce rear wing assembly, the new geometry loads up the central section more and outboard section less.”
Description: “The more elliptic spanwise loading distribution results in a more efficient assembly that generates similar local load to the previous design but with reduced drag for improved straight line speed.”
Beam wing
Reason for change: Performance – local load
Difference: “Compared to the previous assembly, the flap element has been removed.”
Description: “Removal of the flap element reduces drag and helps improve overall (lift to drag) efficiency of the rear wing assembly given the medium downforce requirements of this circuit.”
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Williams
Front wing
Reason for change: Performance – flow conditioning
Difference: “There is a small change to the central trailing edge of the rearmost element. The area of the wing element is reduced and the trailing edge is reprofiled”
Description: “The revised front wing element geometry improves the quality of the flow to the floor, which improves the load delivery along its length.”
Rear wing
Reason for change: Circuit specific – drag range
Difference: “This low drag rear wing has a higher leading edge to the mainplane with a reduced spanwise camber profile. The angle of attack of the flap element is also reduced.”
Description: “The wing geometry generates less downforce and less drag than our previous family of rear wings. This wing level will be appropriate for some of the remaining tracks on the 2023 calendar.”
2023 British Grand Prix
- Norris is “growing” closer to the champion who inspired him to race
- Second supplier part failure ‘a frustrating issue we must solve’ – Alpine
- Albon ‘surprised’ to be quicker than Alonso at end of British GP
- Bottas admits Alfa Romeo ‘were expecting to be better than this’ in 2023
- McLaren now “finding performance quicker” after emulating Red Bull’s design
T
7th July 2023, 19:03
I appreciate these Keith!!