Ferrari unleashes major F1 car upgrades as it chases down Mercedes at Barcelona GP

Ferrari has taken the covers off its latest haul of aerodynamic upgrades as it further aims to make inroads on Mercedes.

The Scuderia last unveiled major upgrades at the Miami Grand prix in early May, which largely worked as intended but couldn’t stem the tide of Mercedes’ early dominance. As F1 hits its most well trodden testing ground in Barcelona, Ferrari introduced another set of upgrades.

The headline item is a long-awaiting evolution of the SF-26’s front wing, which naturally has a major impact on the aero performance downstream.

The new nose has a revised shape with a raised lower surface, a new footplate with a different arrangement of its vanes and an additional dive plane added to the endplate. It also optimised its wing elements to improve the aero load distribution and optimised the integration of the straight mode actuator into the nose.

As well as improving load, the new nose should improve the aero wake over the front tyres and make it easier to keep the car balanced.

Further down the car, Ferrari has optimised the front of its floor to extract more downforce from it, with what it described as “reduced keel volume, redesigned front floor leading edge profiles and claws, front floorboard elements optimisation (horizontal and vertical ones).”

It also optimised the winglets on the rear corner of the floor and various tweaks to the diffuser. The sidepod shape has been altered accordingly to work in harmony with the extensive floor redesign.

McLaren’s Barcelona upgrade is limited to a new front wing endplate to improve the aero flow towards the rest of the car, while Mercedes added small winglets to its rear wing as it chases aerodynamic efficiency.

Red Bull has changed its front wing geometry by revising existing parts, but it has also produced a more powerful flap just in case it is deemed necessary this week in Barcelona.

Not unlike Mercedes, Williams has also made minor rear wing adjustments to add downforce in an efficient manner, taking into account the need to keep drag limited on Barcelona’s long straights.

Ferrari car tech detail

Photo by: Filip Cleeren

Racing Bulls has optimised its diffuser shape and integration into the crash structure while also bringing additional front wing options to balance the VCARB 03, while Haas has also tweaked its rear impact structure.

Cadillac has continued its run of bringing incremental upgrades to the MAC-26, though its updates are limited to additional cooling slots and the reintroduction to the Straight Mode mechanism to its new Monaco rear wing, which was disabled last weekend by regulation.

There are no aero upgrades this weekend for Aston Martin, Alpine and Audi. Aston Martin, in particular, is keeping its powder dry until it can unleash a much bigger upgrade package later this summer, as it doesn’t feel introducing tiny steps right now is worth the resource investment given its position towards the back of the grid.

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– The Autosport.com Team