Team updates for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2023
Due to the cancellation of the Grand Prix of China between the stages in Australia and Baku was a pause of a month. In contrast to the summer break teams had the right and opportunity to work on the car, change concepts and add something new. Let's see what updates have brought different teams.
Immediately it can be noted that some revolutionary updates are not, because in spite of the long pause, the team understand where they have come. Firstly, they have only one training session, and it is equivalent to a very small amount of time to compare the machines, make conclusions and still tune the car for the weekend. Secondly, there has been updated format of the weekend.* The risk of crashing cars during the two qualifying and two races has doubled. Third, the track itself. It is atypical for the settings, so the point of testing the novelties is slightly lost. It's also still urban, which increases the chance of staying in the wall.
Let's break down only the global changes that will play a role in the course of the season, excluding local updates, which are required by the specifics of the track in Baku.
Mercedes has more changes, which were made not for the specifics of the track, but to improve the car. Mercedes made a lower trim on the deflector endplate, which results in a cleaner endplate flow, which hangs the load on the diffuser and floor, changing the balance slightly. They also improved the flow attachment around the outboard fairing, resulting in more performance from the underbody fairing. Especially for Baku, the team increased the outlet area of the air duct to better cool the brakes.
Alpine tried much more. First, for this month they completely renewed the floor, making many changes compared to the previous bottom. The new floor has a different load distribution on the various elements. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon both received the new specification. The change in the angle of incidence of the front top wishbone fairing is more of an experiment that is part of the car's upgrade package. Engineers were able to achieve improved flow conditioning in the rear of the car through the thickness of the rear brake drum and suspension strut fairings.
Apha Tauri has as many as six upgrades registered, but only one, the latest, is global. For braking to be as efficient as possible, the brake discs require good cooling because of the energy expenditure when braking, especially in low-speed corners. That's why Alpha Tauri engineers modified the rear drum blade cascade and the drum itself (also to increase downforce), as well as creating an extra intake.
Red Bull have made a couple of changes, but they are very minor, and as we can see, the winter break Red Bull enough to create a championship car. There were minor revisions to the edge and wing geometries. This is a kind of addition to the updated shape of the side braces, which Red Bull will probably leave for the next stages. The new shape increases air pressure and improves cooling efficiency, which is very important on hot tracks.
Meanwhile McLaren, realizing they were wrong with the concept, completely changed the geometry of the floor. This way the team increased the strength and positioning of the floor structure, increasing the overall load. Also McLaren changed and added other elements in terms of aerodynamics: Lower Drag Rear Wing Assembly, Rear Wing Flap Trims, New upper and lower Beamwing Element. These changes were made in order to relieve the flaps, reduce downforce and drag. Most of the changes are basically aimed at reducing downforce and drag, as this was mainly one of the main reasons for the failures in the previous stages.
As you can see, many teams have worked to reduce drag and the real global changes can be assessed not on the city track, where such factors play a greater role.