Several Formula 1 teams including Red Bull Racing and Ferrari have brought performance-related car upgrades to this weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola.
Aston Martin has implemented the largest number of updates with nine, while Mercedes has also made a suite of changes for the first European round of the season. Some teams developed upgrades to be applied at the first six flyaway rounds, such as McLaren in Miami, but this weekend marks the biggest collective display of changes for the Europe-based organisations.
Reigning champion Red Bull has fitted its points-leading RB20 with performance upgrades to the floor, front wing and nose. The Milton Keynes-based outfit undertook CFD simulations to see how it could extract more load from the floor edge, and found that it could do this by repositioning a section under the rear wing. It also found that it could bring the upper surface of the floor down slightly to improve airflow to the components behind. The leading edge of the front wing endplate has been repositioned and flap elements have been redesigned to extend the chord (the distance between the leading and trailing edges). Extending the chord means that Red Bull can extract more load from the flaps. As an offshoot of revising the flap elements, Red Bull also adjusted the nose box fairings.
‘I think the visibility of the upgrade is maybe not as apparent from outside, but it?s something interesting for us,’ said Red Bull technical director Pierre W...