Red Bull and Ferrari upgrades revealed ahead of crucial Spanish GP test

Red Bull and Ferrari are the leading teams to introduce upgrades in Spain, including a sidepod tweak on the RB20, with the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya set to give the challengers an all-round examination.

Red Bull has experienced sterner competition from Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes over recent rounds, but all eyes are now on the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a track regarded as one of the most complete tests of Formula 1 machinery and therefore a strong indicator of the overall pecking order.

Red Bull revise sidepods and floor for Spanish GP

Max Verstappen returned to winning ways at the wheel of the Red Bull RB20 in Canada, fighting off McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ George Russell, but with struggles over the kerbs highlighted as the cause of absence for their dominant ways in recent rounds, rivals are looking to Barcelona as the true test of their progress.

And the FIA has now confirmed the list of upgrades across the grid for the Spanish Grand Prix, Red Bull revising their sidepod inlet geometries in a circuit-specific move for “greater cooling efficiency”, while modifying the engine cover side panels and floor to accommodate the changes.

Red Bull has also introduced a pair of performance-focused upgrades, revising the rear wing endplate and beam wing.

In a bid to “exploit available air pressure, the beam wing span has been increased to meet a new endplate, offering more local load.”

This has been done via the beam wing elements being extruded into this alternate endplate design, for which the lower third has moved outboard.

While Ferrari has unveiled a higher downforce rear wing specifically for Barcelona, they have also introduced a plethora of further upgrades focused on performance gains.

These are an increased sidepod/coke undercut, revamped diffuser and altered floor body, fences and edge to optimise air flow.

The sidepod changes “improves flow quality over the floor edge and towards the back of the car” and “benefitting from tidier upstream flow structures, the diffuser expansion, together with boat and keel volumes optimisation, has allowed to extract more local load gains.”

Following on from initial alterations for Imola, Ferrari has revised the Halo trailing edge in “another step at improving the management of the losses travelling downstream”.

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Aston Martin has made alterations to the front suspension and corner, as the “update to the front corner geometry improves the local interactions between the suspension fairings and the external duct to improve local load”.

Meanwhile at the rear of the AMR24, a “revised position of the lower deflector in combination with the changes to the lower edge offer increased load on the device and surrounding areas”.

RB has reverted to the front brake cooling duct used in Monaco in a circuit-specific move, but with a nod to performance, has confirmed updates to the sidepod inlet, engine cover, floor, beam wing and rear wing, to improve air flow quality and thus floor and rear wing performance.

RB meanwhile hope to improve efficient load generation on the rear wing and target “a drag level of interest at this and future events”.

Sauber has altered the rear wing with a “redesigned pylon, main plane and flap with detached outboard tips”, explaining that “together with the previously introduced mono pylon, the updated rear wing is linked to the new generation of rear wings and is characterised by a new version of flap, improving the aerodynamic efficiency of the car”.

The exit ducts of the front brake ducts have also been redesigned to “improve the aerodynamic flow” and provide the required level of cooling for the Spanish Grand Prix.

And rounding out the upgrades list is Haas, who have modified the rear impact structure by adding a small winglet on the trailing edge “which increases the local upwash resulting in a marginal load increase.”

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