some interesting bits during fp3 about updates
https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... rand-prix/
Beyond this, there’s generally a further update planned for the summer months, often incorporating real-world data from the launch car, and perhaps a further update to come after the summer break. As the season goes on, the size and frequency of updates becomes question of balancing resource allocation. For a team locked in a tough fight for championship position, there’s a desire to keep improving the car – but any resources still dedicated to it are resources not being used on the next car. This tends to provide some fairly robust conversations in the summer months.
#THEFIFTHDRIVER
14:29
The minute the launch spec is frozen, the design team turns its attention to the first update. In the past, when winter testing would go on for a couple of months, that update might arrive for race one, with a second update scheduled to arrive when the teams arrived in Europe after the first set of flyaway races. That’s changed a bit with launch and race one only a week apart,
so the first round of updates, having already been designed before the cars have turned a wheel,
arriving four or five races into the season.
#THEFIFTHDRIVER
14:28
Designing these updates is an on-going project, with nominal release dates pencilled-in to the calendar well in advance of the season starting. The car will go through a series of design freezes. Manufacturing is a long lead-time job, dominated by skilled craftspeople rather than automation (though there’s quite a bit of that too).
Thus, the launch spec of the MCL38 will have been frozen towards the end of 2023, to give the manufacturing operation time to produce the launch cars and an appropriate number of spares.
#THEFIFTHDRIVER
14:28
Beyond that, there are the genuine updates. There are different ways of defining these, but a good rule of thumb is that they alter the car to the point where the new and the old configurations aren’t interchangeable – e.g. the floor for a B-spec car can’t be fitted to the launch model.