Learn from Coffee Corner Motorsport- Terry Widdows - our technical correspondent about all things tech and car upgrades during each Formula 1 weekend!
Welcome to Round 17 in Baku and what is probably the shortest Tech Corner I have written this season - with only 3 teams bringing a single update to their cars for this weekend.
Before we get into the updates I want to take a moment to discuss Mercedes and their approach. Readers of the Tech Corner will know that since they introduced their new floor for Spa (which they then took off for that race), they have been trialing both floors - the pre-update one and the updated one before a race. They will then decide which one was best.
This weekend, however, they have decided to change their approach and have taken off the new, updated floor in order to correlate the data and are using the pre-Spa floor. This is an issue we are seeing with teams, especially this season, introducing updates then rolling them back- mainly down to the cost cap. In the pre-cost cap era the teams would have had unlimited wind tunnel and budget to fix this. Whereas, in the modern day era, it's a completely different approach - as we are seeing with not only Mercedes but teams up and down the paddock.
Anyway, onto the updates and starting with the Champions
With a rumored upgrade package in the works for Austin, one of the areas the team are hoping to solve immediately is the floor. The team have brought with them this weekend what they are describing in the documents as a floor tunnel subtle revision. It has been applied to improve the pressure gradients along the floor and to improve the flow locally and downstream.
This isn't a subtle revision, though, as the photo shows. Instead they have added a rear boat keel to the diffuser something Ferrari did for Monza. This is a modification of the existing floor rather than a redevelopment designed to aid the floor update expected for Austin. We may see another tweak to the floor at Singapore as well. It has also been believed that with the updates already on the RB20, it's currently the best way- along with setup changes - to get Red Bull back in the hunt for wins.
The team who have obviously been in the news recently, have brought a minor update to Baku with a change to the rear corner of the car. The bottom edge of the lower deflector has been revised to improve the floor performance by redirecting the airflow.
The final update for the week is a circuit specific one.
Visa CashApp RB have introduced a new front wing which has a reduced camber flap. This has been introduced to reduce the load on the front wing to aid with balance of the car at a track with low drag and low balance such as Baku.
That's all for this week! Apologies for it being short, but hopefully for Singapore we may see a few more updates to the track.
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