Analyzing Ferrari’s new parts updates used at the Styrian GP. Changes were made to the front wing.

The second Grand Prix in as many weeks again delivered on the upgrades front, as the teams push hard to recover from time lost during lockdown. A number of teams had new parts in a quest to not only improve performance this week but to get ahead of the game for the Hungarian GP and beyond.

Ferrari
The Maranello team has been adrift of its primary rivals for some time now, with the winning streak between Belgium and Singapore last season seeming like a distant memory. The subsequent sanctions over its operation of the power unit has clearly hit them hard but it also appears to have headed in the wrong direction with the aerodynamic package too.

The team rushed through some of the new parts updates originally scheduled for the Hungarian GP to the second race in Austria in an effort to arrest the slide and help get a real handle on where it has gone wrong. The update included a new front wing and floor, both of which look to alter the way in which the aerodynamic surfaces cater for the wake turbulence created by the tyres.

The changes made to the front wing (inset) include a new footplate, as the team return to an arched design, rather than the flat version used for some time now. Several changes were made to the upper flaps, with the outermost section now joined to the endplate at a lower point and the inboard geometric shape altered too.

Teams have been using the slots on the edge of the floor as a means of controlling the wake turbulence created by the front tyre, limiting how much is ingested by creating flow structures that ‘seal’ the edge of the floor. Ferrari had settled on using three longitudinal fully-enclosed holes ahead of four angled holes just in front of the rear tyre.

The new design shortens these longitudinal holes in favor of more holes angled at 45 degrees ahead of the rear tyre. These holes help to limit the effects of tyre squirt on the diffuser, with airflow pushed laterally into the diffusers path, robbing it of performance, if left unchecked.

The horizontal flap that Ferrari mounted above the floor has been altered too, with a more twisted profile used where it connects to the vertical strake, amplifying its effect. These changes suggest that Ferrari had gone too far in its quest to control the front tyre wake, which resulted in a loss of performance and stability at the rear of the car.