AlphaTauri will bring another update for their car’s floor at the next race as they bid to avoid ending the season last in the championship.
The team brought a significant package of new parts for its AT04 at the Singapore Grand Prix, then modified its floor again at the last round in Qatar.“The floor update we brought here is for reliability,” the team’s head of vehicle performance Guilherme Dezoteux explained at the Losail International Circuit.
“It’s on the forward part of the floor to make an aero surface more consistent and more robust. So it’s a small update. The biggest update came in Singapore, where we brought a complete new floor with the new bodywork.”
The Singapore update “worked well”, he said. “We do see an improvement, more in the corners than on the straight.
“But the car has made a step forward and we think this is one of the main factors we’ve been able to be closer to Q3 over those last races, that’s definitely one of the main factors.”
The team hopes its next update will continue the progress it has made with its car since mid-season.
“We have a new floor coming, again, that’s the main part everybody is developing a lot, there is still a lot of performance to find on those cars on the floor area. So we are manufacturing the floors for Austin, hoping that’s going to be another step in the same direction.
“But it’s fair to say that since Silverstone the updates have delivered and that’s a very positive sign for our aerodynamic department because the correlation is a difficult exercise and when you start delivering it means that the entire chain from analysing the car data, looking at the correlation to the wind tunnel and CFD and developing the aero surface is working.”
The team’s updates resulted in its best finish of the season so far in Singapore, where substitute driver Liam Lawson finished ninth. He is expected to hand his seat back to Daniel Ricciardo in Austin.
With five rounds remaining, including two more sprint race events, AlphaTauri remain last in the championship, seven points behind ninth-placed Haas.
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