Technical: AlphaTauri debut a heavily-revised car in Silverstone

The development race continued to rage at the British Grand Prix with AlphaTauri bringing the most extensive upgrade package to Silverstone. F1Technical’s senior writer Balázs Szabó reflects on the upgrades from Round 10 of the 2023 F1 season.

After debuting a heavily revised floor, sidepod and bodywork design at the Monaco Grand Prix, Meredes brought another important upgrade to last Sunday’s British Grand Prix. The Anglo-German squad introduced a new front wing that features a departure from its previous design in various terms.

The chord distribution of the front wing elements has been modified which has resulted in the redistribution of the front wing wake downstream. The team intended to improve the flow structures to the bodywork and floor.

Moreover, the team has also made changes to the endplates of the front wing. The sideview profile has been changed and the diveplane chamber has also reduced with the aim to achieve cleaner flow and redistributed vorticity.

Following their impressive start to the season, Red Bull have constantly brought minor tweaks to their all-conquering RB19, but they have not introduced an excessive upgrade package yet.

For Silverstone, the reigning world champion team debuted a circuit-specific tweak, reducing intake and exit area of the brake duct. Red Bull’s engineers adapted the intake to the existing inside brake drum face as the Silverstone circuit offers a low braking energy level and as such allows for smaller area intakes and exits.

Alpine introduced some tweaks to the front wing of their 2023 F1 car with the changes affecting the main plane, flap and front wing end plate. The new front wing gives better low-speed management of the wake and reduces losses inboard of the front tyre.

Following their excessive upgrade package at the Red Bull Ring, McLaren continued their development push in Silverstone. The aim was to introduce half of the package in Spielberg with a further 25 per cent of the new parts having made their debut at the British Grand Prix. The Hungaroring is set to see McLaren introduce the remaining 25 per cent of the package.

For the fast 5.8km Silverstone track, the British team made changes to the front wing of the car. The completely revised solution features new elements as well as endplate geometry, aiming at better flow control resulting in an increase of aerodynamic load. The nose section has also been revised in conjunction with the front wing.

Furthermore, the winglet array of the rear brake duct has been revised, resulting an overall increase of local load produced by the assembly.

Aston Martin debuted two circuit-specific changes at the track which is located just 800m away from their factory. The first incorporated a tweak to the front wing flap that has been reduced in its chord. With the reduced chord, the front wing is less loaded which helped the team balance the car with the lower drag rear wing.

The team also brought a modified rear brake duct with both the inlet and the exit having been updated. The aim was to increase disc and caliper cooling.

Formula One’s sole American team debuted tweaks to the front suspension of their car. The design of the fairing of the suspension legs have been updaed with the aim to improve the flow of the wake released by the group of front suspension leg.

The team also made tweaks to the front brake duct and the vertical fin. The shape of the duct has been modified in its inlet and outlet part.

After debuting a new rear wing a few races ago, Haas debuted a revised beam wing at Silverstone which should help get the maximum of the updated top element of the rear wing.

Following a difficult start to the season, AlphaTauri has debuted a heavily-revised car in Silverstone.

The Faenza-based squad had introduced key changes to the floor of their AT04 which incoporated tweaks to the floor body, underfloor surfaces, forward floor fences and the leading edge of the floor.

The engineers have raised the floor leading edge in a bid to increase mass flow to the underfloor, which enhances floor loading. Furthermore, compared to previous floor fences, their camber distributions have changed in sympathy with changes to the floor body roof surfaces.

The team has also modified the diffuser area with the vertical sidewalls having been updated. The diffuser tail change was set to increase the outwash effect to keep rear tyre wakes further outboard, thereby reducing blockage at the diffuser exit for increased local load.

Futhermore, compared to the previous bodywork, its maximum width has been increased. The additional bodywork width is expected to generate higher static pressure which reduces the extent to which front wheel wake losses impinge onto the bodywork with yaw and steer.

The rear suspension was also part of the upgrade package. Compared to the previous rear brake drum, an extra winglet has been added behind the rear top wishbone which should give a small increase in local load generated by the brake duct assembly.

The rear wing has also been revised. Compared to the previous medium downforce rear wing assembly, the new geometry loads up the central section more and outboard section less. With the more elliptic spanwise loading distribution, the team intended to generate similar local load to the previous design but with reduced drag for improved straight line speed.

The beam wing has been also updated to meet the requirements of the Silverstone circuit. Compared to the previous assembly, the flap element has been removed which reduced drag and helped improve aero efficiency of the rear wing assembly given the medium downforce requirements of this circuit.

Following the debut of their excessive upgrade package, Williams introduced further changes to their FW45 in Silverstone.

The front wing has been updated with the central trailing edge of the rearmost element having been slightly changed. The team hoped that the repofiled trailing edge improved the quality of the flow to the floor, which should have improved the load delivery along its length.

Silverstone saw Williams use a circuit-specific low drag rear wing which had a higher leading edge to the mainplane with a reduced spanwise camber profile. The angle of attack of the flap element is also reduced. The Grove-based outfit intends to use this version of rear wing at some of the remaining tracks on the 2023 calendar.