Formula 1 2024 upgrades: McLaren and Sauber bring changes to Brazilian Grand Prix

McLaren 

Sauber

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Cooling upgrades dominate Mexico City Grand Prix changes

Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the Mexico City Grand Prix venue, is characterised by demanding Monaco levels of downforce but Monza levels of speed. This is because it lies at more than 2,200 metres above sea level. 

Being at high altitude, the air is less dense at this circuit. That means fewer particles of air to provide downforce - but also, less drag. As a result, teams have to run high-downforce aerodynamic packages in Mexico City but ensure their engines are sufficiently cooled because of the relative lack of oxygen and the long straight line section.

Here are the upgrades disclosed by F1 teams in Mexico City.

Red Bull

Ferrari 

Williams

Mercedes

RB

Aston Martin

All eyes on Red Bull in the United States

Red Bull brought numerous upgrades to the race in the United States, as did its championship rival McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin, and Alpine.

But attention centred around Red Bull's 'bib' or 'T-tray' device, fitted to the front of the floor to change the height of that section.

Here's what the teams disclosed to the media at the Circuit of the Americas.

Red Bull

Mercedes
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Mercedes brought a major upgrade to the United States with the floor edge wing, floor vanes, and a new front wing designed to work together and improve airflow from the front to the rear of the car.

The front upper suspension wishbone fairing was also reprofiled in Austin, with an extended piece of bodywork to improve cooling towards the engine.

Furthermore, the team put an additional cooling outlet near the rear suspension to increase speed of airflow travelling over the sidepods. 

George Russell finished fifth ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the sprint, but the former crashed at the end of qualifying while the latter qualified only 17th.

Russell's qualifying crash meant Mercedes had to work out of curfew and repair his car, attaching the team's spare Singapore-specification parts to the car.

Russell had to start the race from the pitlane but made it up to sixth on Sunday. Hamilton beached his car in the gravel early in the grand prix.

McLaren
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Aston Martin

Alpine

Haas

RB 

Sauber

Formula 1 2024 upgrades: Teams bring track-specific upgrades to the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix

McLaren

Red Bull

Ferrari

Aston Martin
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Alpine

Like Aston Martin, Alpine went for a more aggressive front wing to generate more downforce. Neither driver scored points. 

Williams

Having introduced a new package at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix, Williams optimised the bodywork with new aero sheathing around the front suspension wishbones, trackrod and pushrods. Alex Albon was forced to retire with a power unit issue and Franco Colapinto just missed out on points.

RB

RB followed Aston Martin and Alpine in bringing a more aggressive front wing flap to the track to balance its car around a circuit-specific high downforce rear wing. Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest lap in what could be his final F1 race for RB but neither he nor Yuki Tsunoda scored points.

Mercedes, Red Bull and Aston Martin develop in Azerbaijan

Mercedes and Red Bull reverted to older specifications in their respective quests to find missing performance relative to McLaren and Ferrari, while Aston Martin and RB also made minor changes.

Here’s what teams disclosed to the media about their car upgrades in Azerbaijan.

Mercedes

Red Bull

Aston Martin
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RB

Ferrari leads 10 teams in Italian Grand Prix update list

With Monza being a high-speed circuit on which drivers spend more than 80 percent of a qualifying lap on the throttle, teams brought low-drag bodywork to the Italian circuit.

Charles Leclerc won the 2024 Italian Grand Prix for Ferrari to send its home fans into raptures. He pitted once on his way to the chequered flag, a strategy that was helped by Ferrari’s comparative mercy on the front tyres.

Every team disclosed updates to the media at Monza, so there was plenty to sift through.

Ferrari
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Ferrari brought the Monza-specific low-downforce rear wing to its second home race of the 2024 F1 season after Imola.

It also debuted a new floor including a reshaped central section underneath and changes to the fences that channel air to the bottom of the car.

Furthermore, the team changed the details of its floor edges, the diffuser, and a slightly bigger undercut underneath the sidepods.

Ferrari also paid homage to carbon fibre with one-off black driver suits and helmet designs for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc won while Sainz was in the hunt for a podium before tyre wear caught him out and he fell to fourth.

Red Bull
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Red Bull returned to its low-drag bodywork package that differs from the high-downforce package used at Zandvoort and Hungary. This means the return of the ‘cooling cannons’ on the side of the engine cover.

The team brought low-downforce wings with smaller planes than usual to Monza as well.

Neither Max Verstappen nor Sergio Perez qualified as well as they had hoped - on the fourth row.

The race was difficult for the team with both drivers noting continued issues with car balance - understeer and unpredictability - as Verstappen finished sixth and his team-mate Perez was eighth.

McLaren
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McLaren evolved its Zandvoort update at Monza with a new sidepod shape beneath the engine cover, plus a bespoke low-downforce front wing.

The team locked out the front row as Lando Norris took pole.

However, Oscar Piastri overtook Norris on the first lap and then Leclerc scythed his way into second. McLaren opted for a two-stop strategy but it was outfoxed by Ferrari’s one-stop plan.

Mercedes
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The Mercedes rear wing was tweaked with a reduced camber angle on the flaps and cutaways at its outer edges - a low drag set-up to account for this high-speed circuit.

As well as the Monza wings, a second phase of the Zandvoort update appeared here – with a new sidepod shape beneath the engine cover.

George Russell qualified third and finished seventh having lost places at the start.

Lewis Hamilton was unhappy to qualify sixth, but he worked his way up to fifth at the chequered flag.

Aston Martin
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Rear wings that produce less load, plus a new beam wing and a front wing to match that low-downforce specification were Aston Martin's upgrades for the 2024 Italian Grand Prix.

The team did not expect to perform well at Monza and neither Fernando Alonso nor Lance Stroll scored points.

Alpine
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Having struggled with car balance at Zandvoort, where Esteban Ocon complained of oversteer, Alpine fared better in the Netherlands although neither driver scored points.

Pierre Gasly was involved in a collision with Kevin Magnussen for which the Haas driver was given a 10-second penalty and two penalty points on his superlicence. As he has now accrued 12 points in a 12-month period, Magnussen will miss the next race of the season at Baku, Azerbaijan.

RB
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Along with low-downforce wings for both cars, a new floor was fitted to Yuki Tsunoda’s car at Monza and the Japanese driver was unhappy with the balance of his car as he qualified 16th for the race.

Tsunoda was the only retiree from the race after a collision with Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg at the start.

Daniel Ricciardo, meanwhile, was 13th and expressed that RB has more performance to find.

Sauber
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Sauber brought a more extensive upgrade package to Monza with a new forward floor for increased load and a slightly revised diffuser to accelerate flow through the tunnel underneath the car.

Neither Valtteri Bottas nor Zhou Guanyu scored as Sauber continues its point-less run.

Haas
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A front wing flap suited to Monza was paired with new sheathing around the front suspension.

Magnussen scored a point with a one-stop strategy, despite taking a 10-second penalty and penalty points on his licence.

Hulkenberg also received a 10-second penalty after colliding with Tsunoda and he finished 17th

Williams
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Williams removed part of its front wing endplate and reduced the angle of the wing, balancing it with a low-downforce rear wing.

Alex Albon scored two points in ninth place while Franco Colapinto finished a solid 12th on his debut.

McLaren and Williams bring new parts to the Dutch Grand Prix

McLaren
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The floor, suspension and wings of the McLaren were reshaped at Zandvoort.

New floor edges were brought to increase local load (increasing downforce produced in that specific area) and the performance of the floor overall.

Williams

Red Bull

Haas

Alpine

RB

Mercedes leads upgrades list for the Belgian Grand Prix

Mercedes brought a new floor to the track but ended up rolling back to the previous specification on Saturday while Red Bull - who had overhauled Max Verstappen’s car in Hungary - reverted to a previous specification as well.

Meanwhile Alpine, who had brought circuit-specific changes to account for Spa-Francorchamps’s low-downforce demands, split set-ups between the cars of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.

The likes of McLaren and Ferrari also brought track-specific upgrades to meet the demands of the high-speed layout at Spa.

Here’s what the teams disclosed to the media in Belgium.

Mercedes

Russell said: "It was important for us to revert to something we know, and see, in the race, if it's a challenge with Spa for us, which I'm pretty confident it is - as opposed to the upgrade.

“So, the upgrades were nothing substantial; it’s just part of the development over the course of the year. And it gives us time now to sort of review all the data from yesterday [Friday practice] and go from there. But I’m pretty confident those upgrades were working as expected.”

Mercedes also brought a low-downforce rear wing and smaller front wing elements to account for Spa-Francorchamps’s lower-drag demands.

Russell took the chequered flag but was later disqualified as his car was underweight after fuel was taken out for compliance checks, promoting Hamilton to his second win in three rounds.

Alpine 

Red Bull

Red Bull did not disclose any upgrades to the media but the major upgrade package it had brought to Hungary - which did away with the ‘cooling cannons’ on the engine cover of the car - weren’t brought to Belgium.

Instead, Red Bull’s car more closely resembled the RB20 that raced at Silverstone.

“I won’t say that they [the upgrades brought to Hungary] didn't work, but maybe we didn't extract everything out of it,” said Verstappen in Belgium.

This decision implies that the team could pursue a parallel upgrade path, using its Hungary-spec car at high-downforce circuits such as Singapore, while retaining its other specification of car for circuits such as Monza, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. 

Verstappen took fourth place and his team-mate Sergio Perez finished seventh with the fastest lap bonus point at Spa-Francorchamps.

Ferrari
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The Ferrari SF-24 was fitted with lower-downforce front and rear wings to suit the layout of Spa-Francorchamps.

Charles Leclerc secured the final podium place while his team-mate Carlos Sainz took sixth in Belgium.

McLaren
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McLaren also brought circuit-specific changes to Belgium: a low-downforce rear wing, a beam wing to match, and ‘furniture’ around the rear brake ducts to match.

Oscar Piastri finished second to Hamilton and Lando Norris finished fifth, narrowly behind Verstappen, in Belgium.

RB
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Three circuit-specific changes were made by RB at Spa.

The rear corner winglets were replaced with a different arrangement to reduce downforce and drag.

Meanwhile the rear wing was profiled to reduce drag - and an extra plane was added to the beam wing to achieve the same goal.

Neither driver finished in the points.

Sauber
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Sauber brought further changes to its car to optimize its continued development. 

The mirrors were reshaped to provide better flow control and quality for the rear end of the car.

Meanwhile, the floor fences were reworked to generate more local flow and complement the rear end.

The front wing, rear wing and beam wing were all redesigned for Spa’s low-downforce demands.

Sauber remains the only team yet to score a point this season before the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix.

Haas
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Haas also brought circuit-specific upgrades to Spa: a new beam wing and rear wing, but Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg finished 14th and 18th, respectively.

Max Verstappen runs new-spec Red Bull in Hungary

Red Bull

The fairings on the halo rearward mounts have been adjusted accordingly "to eliminate mismatches in the local surfaces".

But that's only part of what was a major upgrade package, that also included changes to the wheel bodywork, a reprofiled front wing and a new shroud profile on the front suspension's lower wishbone forward leg. Those parts, unlike the new bodywork, were also on Sergio Perez's car.

Aston Martin

Sauber

Ferrari

Mercedes

Cooling changes

Ferrari takes a step backwards for the British Grand Prix

Ferrari

“We've lost some performance since Monaco, as a matter of fact, and we are looking into it; that's also why we are doing all these tests,” said Leclerc. “We came to the conclusion that it was the right choice to come back for this weekend mostly because of bouncing.”

After qualifying seventh, Sainz said the choice to revert “hasn't given us any extra performance; it's just given us a little bit more consistency in the high-speed given we have a bit less bouncing on that floor, and we need to make the car as consistent or predictable as possible in the high-speed knowing that, obviously, we're not going forwards or backwards - we're just making the car a bit more consistent.”

Despite Ferrari coming away from Silverstone with just 11 points - its second-worst weekend this season, barring the non-scoring Canadian GP weekend - 14th-placed Leclerc said it was the “right choice” to revert specification.

“At a track like this we decided it was probably better having a bit less performance but having more consistency and I think it was the right choice. Going forward we’ll analyse the data of the two packages and see if there’s anything we didn’t understand with the new one,” said the Monegasque driver.

Red Bull

Haas

Mercedes

McLaren

Aston Martin

RB

Sauber

McLaren and four other teams bring minor changes to Austria

However, it also places a bigger premium than the vast majority of its grand prix host counterparts in alleviating drag, which was reflected in several of the upgrades teams declared this past weekend.

Five of the teams – including championship leader Red Bull at its home event – declared no upgrades at all, which is unsurprising given both the race's status as the middle event in a triple-header and, more pertinently, the sprint weekend format.

This means there is just one practice session that's much better used for dialling in the competitive set-up than trying to figure out whether an upgrade package is performing.

McLaren

The Woking-based team made arguably the biggest and least circuit-specific change, debuting a new front wing specification that it described as an evolution of the concept it had debuted at Miami.

The new wing is characterised by a flatter, more uniform top chord and some reshaping on the outer ends of the three chords.

This targets gains in low-speed corners, which used to be a real Achilles' heel of McLaren's, but is no longer a major weakness thanks to its recent development work.

Paired up with the front wing change are reworked suspension shrouds, albeit that's very much secondary given the suspension is "more of a passive component" compared to something like the floor, according to team principal Andrea Stella.

"When you change the front wing it changes slightly the flow that goes to the back of the car, and so you need to optimise the components downstream for the slight variation on the flow topology..

"This is very normal. I think I see more and more that when teams bring front wing upgrades, they always upgrade then brake ducts and suspension shrouds. But that's purely aerodynamics."

Mercedes
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Mercedes, whose driver George Russell emerged victorious in Austria, brought a reduced-camber beam wing to the Red Bull Ring.

"It's not really circuit-specific, in that there'll be other places that we run it," was Mercedes trackside chief Andrew Shovlin's description of the team's Austrian Grand Prix update. 

The team said it "reduces load both locally and on the floor", which ties in with the aforementioned onus on drag reduction at the Red Bull Ring.

"It just allows us to achieve a lower drag level with the same upper wing [rear wing]," Mercedes said in a press release.

Sauber

Another team to introduce a beam wing change, also in the pursuit of a drag reduction, was Sauber who brought in a single-element version for this weekend specifically – but admitted ahead of running that it might not use that part for the weekend.

Instead, Sauber settled on its previous configuration.

RB
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The primary development focus for Red Bull's second team right now is getting the most out of its latest big upgrade, which the team CEO Peter Bayer admitted had arrived with a bit of a "belly flop" in Barcelona.

The package was more competitive at the Red Bull Ring, and part of that package specifically for Austria was a revision to the winglets on the rear brake drum to "help manage the flow at the back of the car".

Ferrari
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The Scuderia made what it described as a circuit-specific change with an addition of an extra cooling louvres panel, "in anticipation of possible high ambient temperatures".

This change came "at an expense of aerodynamic efficiency", but its anticipation was correct, with the air temperature around 30 degrees Celsius for the race after a cooler start to the grand prix weekend.

Formula 1 2024 upgrades: Red Bull, RB and Ferrari ring the changes in Spain

F1 teams’ vast knowledge of this track, based on the fact it has historically been a favoured testing venue, means it is a very valuable place for introducing updates and benchmarking progress. However, as the Spanish Grand Prix takes place later in the season than before, teams no longer wait until this race to implement their upgrade packages.

This track consists mostly of medium and high-speed long-duration corners – with a couple of slower-speed ones – and only one moderately lengthy straight. The removal of the final chicane from 2023 also eliminated the one section that required the cars to ride kerbs aggressively, so the current, faster, configuration naturally pushes teams towards bigger rear wings and lower ride height ranges than in Canada.

This track consists mostly of medium and high-speed long-duration corners – with a couple of slower-speed ones – and only one moderately lengthy straight. The removal of the final chicane from 2023 also eliminated the one section that required the cars to ride kerbs aggressively, so the current, faster, configuration naturally pushes teams towards bigger rear wings and lower ride height ranges than in Canada.

Here are the updates disclosed by teams to the media in Spain.

Red Bull

Red Bull and Ferrari have both been relatively quiet on the upgrade front since Imola, but both teams introduced significant changes for Spain. For Red Bull, this encompassed the radiator inlets, engine cover side panels and floor, as well as a revised rear wing.

The revised geometry of the radiator inlets was brought to induce a higher pressure of air being fed there, so as to minimise the area of aerodynamically-damaging outlet louvres. This brought with it a change to the engine cover side panels and even to the floor, so as to match the new bodywork. 

The span of the lower beam wing has been expanded to merge into a new endplate geometry, which should give more load from the beam wing itself. In order to incorporate this change, the lower part of the main wing’s endplates have been moved outboard.

Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan indicated the cooling configuration changes were about improving the aerodynamic efficiency of the car for circuits like Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Silverstone.

At these tracks, the car is aerodynamically sensitive to so-called ‘dirty air’ spilling off of louvres that will, by necessity, need to be opened to cool the car in the higher ambient temperatures of the European summer.

Ferrari
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The most visible changes to the Ferrari were to the sidepod undercut – with the area underneath the front of the sidepod opened up. The sidepod undercut and the coke bottle cutaway at the rear have both been enhanced with the aim of increasing downforce at the rear of the car and the floor fences at the tunnel inlet have been suitably re-aligned to fully exploit this. 

The roof of the floor itself has been lowered at the front to enhance the effect. The new floor also incorporates a newly shaped central ‘canoe’ section between the tunnels, revised floor edges and a new diffuser geometry.

Ferrari has introduced a new high downforce rear wing and beam wing offering what it claims is a wider range of effectiveness in the transient state, when the car is in yaw.

Senior performance engineer Jock Clear described this latest update as resulting from a parallel program of development instigated for the car at Imola, which was “somewhat fast-tracked” to Barcelona because of its “fantastic” suitability for car upgrade evaluation.

“It’s super close,” added Clear, of the development battle Ferrari and F1’s other top teams are embroiled in. “And if you can come one race earlier [with an upgrade] the gain’s doubled, effectively.”

RB
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The new engine cover/upper sidepod profile is designed to improve flow to the rear wing and this has involved reshaping the radiator inlet leading edge. This has been done in line with changes to the height of the forward part of the floor and to the alignment and geometry of the tunnel inlet fences – and a new rear wing to maximise efficiency at the sort of downforce levels used for Barcelona and similar tracks.

RB sporting director Alan Permane said this latest update was “in line” with previous efforts to improve the car’s performance at high-speed, given it’s been a relatively stronger performer through low-speed corner profiles so far.

Sauber
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Sauber introduced a new rear wing which more fully integrates with the switch to a single pylon mounting made two races ago – plus updated front brake ducts for a better aero/cooling trade-off.

Aston Martin
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Aston Martin modified its front suspension fairings to give a better airflow interaction with the flow exiting the redesigned brake duct.

There are also slight changes to the aero devices on the rear brake ducts to increase local load.

Haas
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Haas attached a new winglet atop the rear structure of its car.

Alpine, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams did not declare updates for this race.

2024 Formula 1 upgrades: Mercedes makes major change for Canadian Grand Prix

Mercedes 

The team brought its old specification of wing to the track for Friday practice, which was affected by rain, but ran the new specification of wing from third practice onwards.

Its original 2024 wing design was unusual given its highest element comprised a small element of carbon fibre rather than a full plane.

Aston Martin

Red Bull

Williams

RB

Sauber

Haas

How all 10 teams adapted to the Monaco Grand Prix

There were circuit-specific rear wings and beam wings aplenty as the teams showcased their upgrades on Friday at Monaco. But so too were there some important performance updates that the teams will carry beyond the weekend.

Here’s what the 10 F1 teams disclosed to the media about their updates at the eighth round of the 2024 season.

Red Bull

Accompanying the new Monaco-spec Red Bull rear wing is a high-downforce beam wing enlarged by chord and camber.

There’s also an enlarged inlet and exit brake duct to optimise cooling around a track that’s very tough on brakes.

To help mobility through Monaco's tight corners, Red Bull also added a small notch in the upper front wishbone fairing for more steering lock.

Mercedes

Like Red Bull and Ferrari, Mercedes increased the camber of both its rear wing and beam wing to cope with Monaco’s slow corners.

Mercedes also increased the inboard floor leading edge to increase the acceleration in this area, which in turn generates more load.

There was also a further change to the Mercedes front wing, used by George Russell, with a larger chord inboard flap and redistribution of the main plane chord.

McLaren
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McLaren joined its frontrunning rivals in bringing a circuit-specific rear wing and beam wing, two races on from its transformative Miami GP upgrade that helped deliver Lando Norris his first F1 win.

Ferrari

Ferrari also brought a circuit-specific rear wing and beam wing to Monaco to meet the track’s aerodynamic requirements.

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Aston Martin added a Monaco-spec rear wing and beam wing which it described as having “more aggressive geometry”.

Alpine
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Alongside a circuit-specific rear wing and beam wing with “the sole aim of tackling the high-downforce nature of Monaco”, Alpine introduced a front wing with a bigger range of flap profiles, to help compensate for the larger rear wing.

Alpine also joined a 2024 trend of adjusting its fairings on the halo. That helps produce more outwashing flow out of the cockpit, improving the flow to the rear wing and beam wing.

Williams
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The beam wing and rear wing on the Williams have increased chord lengths and a higher angle of attack in Monaco.

There are also circuit-specific cooling changes for the brake temperature demands of Monaco, with larger front brake duct scoop exits.

RB
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Red Bull’s sister team RB switched to a two-element beam wing and enlarged rear wing with increased camber, as well as enlarged front brake cooling ducts. These are all Monaco-specific changes.

There was one performance update listed that wasn’t specific to Monaco. The profiles of the suspension members were modified and adjusted.

Those updates “improve the flow attachment on the suspension legs” and reduce the unwanted airflow separation in this area.

Sauber
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Haas

Nine teams including Ferrari bring upgrades to Imola

Ferrari

Aston Martin

Aston Martin brought major upgrades to Imola, revamping its AMR24 from front to back. A new central section of the front wing and a new first element has been brought to improve general performance. The nose has been changed to suit those changes.

The floor body has been reshaped to improve underfloor airflow and increase local flow, as have the floor fences and floor edge.

The top edge of the diffuser has been modified to improve load, while the rear suspension and rear corner have been reshaped to work with those changes.

Finally, the coke-bottle section, where the engine cover narrows towards the rear of the car, has been revised to improve local load and cooling specific to the demands of Imola.

Red Bull

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Mercedes

Haas 

McLaren

Williams

Sauber

Alpine

McLaren and Mercedes bring major changes to Miami

McLaren

McLaren brought a significant upgrade package to Miami including a completely revised floor design, reshaped brake ducts and reshaped bodywork throughout the car. The team brought two different specifications of cars to the track with Norris running all of the new upgrades and Oscar Piastri about 50% of them. 

The bodywork and engine cover of the MCL38 were reshaped to work in conjunction with new sidepod inlets and the revised floor design. 

Mercedes
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Red Bull
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Aston Martin

Williams
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RB

Sauber

Haas
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