Red Bull introduces modified floor design in Baku, and hints at further upgrades for Singapore
On the back of a series of tough races in recent weeks, Red Bull have brought a revised floor to this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix, hoping that the modified part will solve their current balance issues.
Red Bull have endured a series of difficult races in recent weeks, with Max Verstappen having secured his last F1 victory at the Spanish Grand Prix in June.
The Milton Keynes-based squad has revealed that balance issues have been the main limiting factor which have held their performance back in recent rounds. The three-time champion often complained about understeer in slow corners, with the current issues prompting him to say that Red Bull "basically turned it [the RB20] into a monster,”
Speaking of the problems, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner noted: “We've got a disconnection in balance that just isn't working.
“As soon as you end up in that situation, you're harder on tyres. You then end up compensating, you move the balance around, you secure one problem and you create another. So you just end up in a vicious circle.”
The reigning world champion team have now brought a revised floor body to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in an attempt to revitalise their RB20.
With the team considering the changes as "subtle" tweaks, the new floor features a revised tunnel geometry, with the new design sporting raised and lowered surfaces compared to the previous configuration.
In its description, the team noted that the "changes applied to improve the pressure gradients along the floor to improve the flow locally and downstream in all conditions."
Commenting on the upgrade, chief engineer Paul Monaghan added: "The lessons are kind of ongoing and the immediate reaction tends to be the later races so it's a testament to everybody that we got it here. It's a lot of hard work and that hard work will continue. Singapore's only a week away so it'll be potentially another evolution for us.
"The scale of the update kind of determines the phase lag in there, so if we've managed to do it for this race, it's not the biggest one we'll ever undertake in terms of geometry change.
"It's subtle, could the effect be good? Yes. And I think the proof of the pudding will be on Sunday afternoon.
Monaghan continued: "We've tried to bring changes to the car and make it better and we don't want to watch Monza again. It wasn't the most pleasant event for us, so we'd like to improve, relative to our opposition.
"As I keep saying, Sunday afternoon, let's see how we go. And then we'll know a bit more about what we're doing. This time around, all of our research says this is the right thing to do. Ultimately, our test is later today."
