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Even with just five weekends remaining this season, teams are working to develop their cars.
The bulk of that effort this weekend is on reliability, specifically cooling, with Ferrari taking a dramatic approach to the topic with gills on its airbox.
But there are some performance upgrades in the lane too, with McLaren introducing a new floor which it describes as “heavily revised.”
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RB also has a small collection of performance parts, though teams’ focus has unquestionably been on keeping the cars cool in the thin air and high altitude of Mexico City.
Red Bull Racing
| Updated component | Primary reason for update | Geometric differences compared to previous version | Brief description on how the update works |
| Coke/Engine Cover | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | Enlarged volume of the central top body. | Given the ambient conditions unique to this circuit, RBR need a larger PU cooling exit and have chosen to alter the central part of the top body to achieve the anticipated capacity. |
| Front Corner | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | Enlarged volume of the exit duct | Again, to cope with the brake energies and ambient conditions, a larger exit duct has been prepared to enhance the cooling capacity. |
Ferrari
| Updated component | Primary reason for update | Geometric differences compared to previous version | Brief description on how the update works |
| Cooling Louvres | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | Additional bodywork exit louvres | Specific to the requirements of the Mexico City circuit, these new bodywork exit louvres are extending the top end of the engine cooling capacity, at the expense of car efficiency |
McLaren
| Updated component | Primary reason for update | Geometric differences compared to previous version | Brief description on how the update works |
| Coke/Engine Cover | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | High Cooling Sidepod and Engine Cover | To provide sufficient power unit cooling in the particular ambient conditions observed in Mexico, the sidepod and engine cover have been revised to increase air flow through the cooling ducts. |
| Cooling Louvres | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | High Cooling Louvres | As part of the high cooling sidepod design, the cooling louvre area has been increased, enabling the increase in air flow required. |
| Floor Body | Performance -Local Load | Revised Floor | The floor design has been heavily revised, with geometric changes in all areas, resulting in an increase of aerodynamic load across all conditions. |
Williams
| Updated component | Primary reason for update | Geometric differences compared to previous version | Brief description on how the update works |
| Beam Wing | Circuit specific – Drag Range | Optional trailing edge trim is available for the RLW. This is simply a reduction in chord length | The trimmed chord increases the efficiency of the overall rear wing assembly. Drag and downforce are both reduced but in a way that may be efficient in Mexico. |
| Coke/Engine Cover | Circuit specific – Cooling Range | Larger bodywork with larger central exit area. | To cover the increased PU cooling requirements in Mexico that result from the altitude, a larger bodywork exit is available to increase the air flow through the coolers. |
RB
| Updated component | Primary reason for update | Geometric differences compared to previous version | Brief description on how the update works |
| Floor Fences | Performance -Flow Conditioning | Modifications to the camber of the floor fences. | Improves the quality of the vortex formation on the fences, reducing the aerodynamic losses downstream. |
| Floor Edge | Performance -Local Load | The floor edge wing profiles have been modified. | The aerodynamic load generated along the edge of the floor is increased. |
| Coke/Engine Cover | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | Enlarged cooling exit at rear of bodywork. | Opening up the back of the engine cover reduces the pressure behind the radiators to increase the flow through them, providing additional engine cooling. |
| Cooling Louvres | Circuit specific -Cooling Range | Optional louvre panel on top deck of bodywork. | Further reduction in radiator back-pressure possible with additional openings on the top of the sidepods. |
