Red Bull and McLaren unveil key British GP upgrades

McLaren is continuing to turn up the pressure on Red Bull in the F1 title with the introduction of a new low-downforce rear wing for the British Grand Prix.

The battle between Red Bull and McLaren, tipped to be the leading contenders on the fast Silverstone sweeps, looks set to continue this weekend, with McLaren adding a crucial component to its MCL38.

Reducing drag is key at Silverstone owing to the long full-throttle blast from Luffield, through Maggots and Becketts and onto the Hangar Straight, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri receiving the 'low-drag special' rear wings. 

The hope is to dump the drag, with the beam wing also receiving attention from the Woking engineers in a bid to trade downforce for drag in an efficient manner whilst increasing the operating range of the wing. 

There is also a small cooling improvement to the engine cover.

In response to the Austrian GP, where McLaren's Norris collided with Red Bull's Verstappen, motorsport advisor Helmut Marko teased fresh upgrades to the RB20 for Silverstone. 

The main area of focus for the team has been on the floor, albeit only what has been described as 'a subtle reprofiling' of a particular area to apply energy, and in turn pressure, to the edge wing.

The edge wing itself has also undergone 'a minor reprofiling'. As there will be higher pressure upstream, more camber is required to be able to accept the additional load created and to maintain air-flow stability. 

Mercedes' small upgrade

Elsewhere, as Charles Leclerc explained on Thursday, Ferrari has no upgrades to the SF-24 and is instead hoping to back-to-back test parts on the existing car - if the British weather will allow it to do so. 

Mercedes has a small upgrade on the rear corner of the W15, aimed at improving airflow attachment through a range of conditions to produce more local load. 

Haas has the biggest package on the grid, available to both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg, featuring new parts to the floor, sidepods, and engine cover.

The team is hoping to increase downforce generated from the floor by extracting more load in a "more coherent" fashion, with the sidepod inlets also tidied up for a "cleaner" airflow to the rear of the car. 

As a result of the new sidepod geometry, it is able to feature top cooling gills, whilst a new mirror stay is also needed to optimise the airflow to the rear of the VF-20. 

Aston Martin has also brought a front-wing and rear-corner upgrade to the AMR24 as RB had added a winglet to the top of the halo to direct airflow, with Stake bringing a minor floor boost for Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.