Technical: three teams to debut new parts in Qatar

F1 Grand Prix, GP Qatar, Losail International Circuit

With the Qatar Grand Prix featuring the special sprint weekend format, only three teams have decided to introduce new parts for their car with Alpine, AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo debuting upgraded elements at the Losail track.

With the season nearing its conclusion, the development work on the current F1 cars has slowed down in recent weeks as teams have shifted their focus on their 2024 challengers. The fact that the Qatar Grand Prix features the sprint weekend format that only contains a single practice session was a further reason for teams to postpone their upgraded parts if they have anything left in the pipeline.

However, the season has shown that outfits that are confident of the imminent and immediate success of their developments can deploy the upgrades despite the lack of practice session. Ferrari brought their last big upgrade in Austria while McLaren introduced several key new parts in Belgium with both venues having sported sprint races.

For the resurfaced and upgraded Lusail circuit, three teams have brought new parts.

Although Alpine find themselves in a no man's land in the constructors' championship, they are still pushing to develop their car that has been inconsistens across the current season. The A523 has been quick in certain places like in Suzuka or Silverstone, but it slipped back in the pecking order in places like Monza that features long straights, slow-speed corners and high kerbs.

The Anglo-French outfit have brought a new floor body to this event featuring a taller diffuser sidewall cutout in the tyre flank area, a change the team says will “bring a small gain in downforce particularly at low rear ride height settings." The new floors will be available to both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon this weekend.

The team has also revised the orientation of the geometry of the lower flicks on the rear drum which is expected to help drag reduction and provide some downforce increase at low rear ride height setting. This upgrade was only tested on one car during the opening Friday practice.

Furthermore, Alpine have also tested revised cooling louvres with a bigger bodywork exit. However, it was only a test item with the team set to use this cooling package at the Mexico City Grand Prix where managing of the power unit temperatures is usually a big task.

Alfa Romeo have also focused attention on the rear of the car, debuting redesigned planes of the beam wing while the shape of the lower part of the rear wing endplate has also been altered.

The team explained that the upgrade to the beam wing and endplates is part of the upgrade package introduced over the last couple of events and is designed to work in conjunction with it, enhancing the aero flow throughout the bodywork of the car.

The only other team to bring an update for this race is AlphaTauri. The Italian outfit has brought a performance upgrade by having altered the floor edge. The team hopes that the modification will “reduce the pressure at the edge of the floor and draw more mass flow between the floor fences, thereby increasing local load on that part of the floor”.

Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, Aston Martin, McLaren, Williams and Haas have not brought any new parts to Qatar.