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 16 and Monza. As expected the update list is long here with every single team listing an update for this weekend. I should add though that it's worth remembering that any update is listed if not been used before and there are a huge amount of track specific updates that are unique to Monza due to its layout.
Let's get into the top updates that have caught my eye this weekend though
A topic which has been getting a lot of attention - especially from Christain Horner is the McLaren Front Wing. This is an area that both McLaren and Mercedes have invested a lot of time in developing this year.
McLaren have arrived with a rather unusual cut out on the front wing flap... The team have said this is to help with the demands of Monza and is listed as circuit specific with the team saying, "the Front Wing Flap has been redesigned to extend the available aerobalance range." This is, no doubt, to respond to the downforce needed for this track. What will be interesting is that on both McLaren cars - will it in fact be on the car come qualifying or will they revert back to a more traditional design after testing this one out?
Other updates for McLaren include a new Coke/Engine cover due to the new sidepod design that was introduced in Zandvoort - helping the flow of air, especially at the rear. The other demand around here is brakes and overheating and the final update for McLaren is to the Front Corner where they have made changes to increase the brake cooling.
A team who are hoping that they can bring performance back to their car is, of course, Ferrari in their home GP. They have brought no fewer than 9 updates to their car with quite a few being minor.
However, the underside on the Ferrari is pretty much brand new as they hope to solve their bouncing and set up issues. They have new floor fences, floor body and floor edge. Whilst we haven't seen underneath the Ferrari, we have caught a glimpse of the new parts on the edge.
The team have said that these updates are to improve the losses traveling downstream. There are new venturi tunnels underneath to direct the airflow more effectively and increase downforce. The edge wing supports have been redesigned along with changes to the diffuser area to accommodate the changes. The other updates on the Ferrari are the front wing, nose, mirror, rear wing and the coke/engine cover as they hope podiums and maybe even wins are back on the agenda starting at home.
Like many of the teams here, due to the unique characteristics of the track, Red Bull have a track specific rear wing. The have reduced the Chord on the top part of the wing similar to the cutout you will notice on the McLaren front wing early on in the update list. This is to reduce the drag of the RB20 by reducing the load but its what is not listed on the updates that is more important this week.
Similar to last week, the cars will be running different spec floors in a bid to solve their issues. Max is running an adapted early season floor whilst Checo has a newer one. These are not listed on the updates as they are recycled previously introduced parts. The floor Max has is being described as pre-Imola with modern adaptations on it. Now, Red Bull introduced a floor in China so it's hard to see if Max is on that one or even as far back as Bahrain to solve the issues.
This suggests that Red Bull have gone down a development wrong turn which we know McLaren did in pre-season last year, Mercedes have done as well as Aston Martin and Ferrari and with limited wind tunnel use due to the sliding scale as the current number 1 team they may be using on track data gathering to help them decide the best way to proceed.
Mercedes were a team whom last year around herem really struggled for pace as one of the slowest cars in the speed traps. Their update isn't listed as track specific, but performance based. However, it's clear the upgrade is here for this reason.
They have made a subtle change to the rear tips and a reduced chord to reduce drag and load to increase that speed. Like Red Bull, they are also running different floors with one car running the pre-Spa update and the other running the new floor - which is what they did last weekend in Zandvoort in FP1 before deciding which floor to put on both cars after gathering the data.
A little different from the usual updates, but one that has to appear, is the new fresh tarmac and smoother kerbs in Monza. The tarmac has been completely redone with a unique tarmac material, which could cause issues with grip heat. The new darker color of the tarmac means it's likely to retain heat and increase track temperatures over the weekend. The sausage kerbs have also been removed in places and at the moment is a source of complaint for the drivers. The track will evolve as the weekend goes with support races laying down rubber but could well play a part in the weekend yet in terms of tyre wear and catching drivers out.
That's it for this week's update and i'll see you in a couple of weeks for Baku.
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