Ferrari, Red Bull, Williams lead F1 Belgian GP upgrade sheet

Red Bull, Williams and Ferrari have brought the most significant car changes to Spa-Francorchamps as eight of the Formula 1 teams are set to introduce upgrades over the sprint weekend.

As previously reported, Ferrari has brought its reprofiled rear suspension to Spa, which it hopes will make the car less sensitive to ride-height changes and therefore easier to keep within the ideal operating window.

Having sampled the new layout during a recent brief filming day at Mugello, Lewis Hamilton says he expects it to take several weekends for Ferrari to optimise the new geometry and gain significant benefits, but he praised the team for its development efforts.

Red Bull has brought its latest tranche of upgrades after previously introducing tweaked floor, front wing and rear corner fairings in previous races.

The team is bringing further subtle tweaks to its Barcelona front wing to Spa with revised “first and second elements” to raise the overall downforce level.

It has also improved the rear wheel bodywork winglets to add load without upsetting the balance of the car. Then, for cooling purposes, it has tweaked sidepod inlets, the engine cover and front suspension fairings.

McLaren has brought the latest iteration of its low-downforce rear wing, that it says will be “improving overall efficiency across a similar drag range”. McLaren has aggressively tackled the aero efficiency of its range of wings in recent years, an area in which it historically lagged behind Red Bull, and its latest low-drag design should also stand it in good stead at circuits like Monza, Baku and Las Vegas later this year.

Mercedes is introducing a new front wing endplate to help optimise the flow over the front tyres, and for similar reasons it has also made a rear corner tweak, moving what it calls the “drum lip” inboard away from the rear tyres.

Mercedes W16 technical detail

Photo by: Circuitpics.de

Aston Martin has brought a shorter nose, which means it has also had to update its front wing assembly to match it. At Spa it is also introducing a front wing flap with reduced load for the demands of Spa’s long straights, although team principal Andy Cowell pointed out the new front wing is “more of a test item” and unlikely to be raced.

“It’s a sprint race and we want to make sure we set the car up well for the race,” he said. “So, Fernando [Alonso] will be testing the front wing in FP1. If we’re unsure, we will stick with our existing wing.” 

The team did bring a lower-downforce rear wing and beam wing that it intends to keep on the car throughout.

Alpine has also brought a lower-downforce rear wing and beam wing in what is a modest upgrade, as the team has consciously restricted its 2025 in-season development for the sake of 2026.

Racing Bulls has tackled its diffuser and rear corner winglets to improve the airflow around the rear of the VCARB 02, while also bringing bespoke low-drag rear wings, with new team boss Alan Permane telling Autosport the team is looking at bringing one more minor upgrade after the summer break while aero development has shifted to 2026.

Williams FW47 technical detail

Photo by: Circuitpics.de

Williams has brought an intriguingly large upgrade package focused on a new profile for the all-important floor, with changes to the floor fences and a more complex floor edge wing design.

“The revised fence geometries redistribute the balance of loading through the floor fence channels – this increases the local front of floor loading as well as improving the potential for the downstream flow,” the team explained.

The Grove squad has also revised its sidepod inlet, which has allowed it to make a deeper undercut to its bodywork and improve aero performance without sacrificing power unit cooling.

Haas and Sauber are the only teams not to declare any upgrades for this weekend’s sprint format event, which gives teams only one single practice session on Friday to dial in upgrades before heading into sprint qualifying.