Ferrari has shown great creativity so far in the new era of Formula 1 and this has undoubtedly come from a change in design processes and development.
If Australia is anything to go by, this philosophy appears to have translated into a race-by-race upgrade programme rather than waiting until a particular race to introduce a larger package as they have done in previous years.
The vertical mirror stalks and accompanying vane have been replaced by a curved bracket, displacing the position of the mirror body away from the driver and having a greater influence on the airflow over the top of the sidepod.
Offsetting the mirror should also help the driver’s rear visibility as it sits below the height of the rear-wing main plane.
The new mirror mounts were introduced alongside a pair of extended canards ahead of the car’s inlets, which direct flow towards the large undercut region of bodywork that forms the sidepod.
McLaren
Having had an abysmal winter testing period McLaren continued to carry out setup and development work into free practice and even qualifying, with Stoffel Vandoorne’s car sporting a host of pitot tubes and subjected to a variety of power unit settings that ultimately left the Belgian with a performance disadvantage to team-mate Fernando Alonso in qualifying.
Alonso was the only driver to receive revised bargeboards, which are higher and crinkle along the leading edge to meet with the chassis.
Both cars did, however, sport trimmed front-wing flaps to help the car’s aero balance and a triple set of vortex generators atop of the sidepod shoulder which appear to displace front-tyre wake as it travels rearwards.
The leading ‘axe-head’ part of the floor is now divided into two forward-reaching elements, following the Mercedes-style development of serrating surfaces to micro-manage airflow.
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