Two underperforming giants of Formula 1 will look to close the gap to their respective rivals with a host of updates for the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. The details of the developments brought to the Ferrari and McLaren cars have been confirmed, along with changes for the AlphaTauri cars, and minor tweaks to the Red Bull, Haas and Williams cars. As seen in Thursday's initial garage images, Ferrari are confirmed to have a new front wing and floor body, with the aims of improving the aerodynamic balance and efficiency of the underperforming SF-23 car. McLaren, who are set to run upgrades on Lando Norris' car only, have brought new sidepods, floor and engine cover, with aim of improving the aerodynamic efficiencies - a particular issue for the McLaren at higher speed - and overall downforce. The McLaren MCL60 will also have design tweaks to the halo and the neighbouring cooling louvres. The Woking team's desire to extract performance comes at the risk of a Sprint weekend. Norris will be hoping to survive the additional racing action and gather valuable data for the team's development push.
AlphaTauri aiming to reclaim midfield ground
The team currently at the foot of the 2023 Constructors' Championship, AlphaTauri, have brought a selection of updates for their secondary home race. A new rear and beam wing assembly is aimed at bringing aerodynamic efficiency improvements, whilst circuit-specific modifications have been made to the cooling louvres due to what AlphaTauri describes as the "high cooling demands" of the Red Bull Ring. Elsewhere, championship leaders Red Bull haven't parked the upgrades for their dominant RB19 just yet, but have only introduced tweaks to the lower wishbone fairings of the rear suspension to "improve local [air] flow stability". Fresh from their impressive P7 result in Canada, Williams are looking to build on their result with new parts in Austria, having only introduced the upgrades to Alex Albon's car in Montreal. The 'fence' at the front of the floor has only a slight modification, along with a reprofiling of the brake ducts to further optimise the air flow. Haas are the only other team to declare an update, but this is simply to the sensor instrumentation on the nose of the car. Mercedes, Aston Martin, Alpine and Alfa Romeo have not declared any new components for this weekend's Austrian Grand Prix.
https://twitter.com/HaasF1Team/status/1674721633699864578
Just a minor update for us in Austria for this sprint weekend, with a new pitot tube on the #VF23 Dom Haines explains all 👇 #HaasF1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/vQQDYI5LQ1 — MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) June 30, 2023
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