While teams usually don’t introduce big changes during sprint race weekends because there isn’t much track time, they still look for ways to improve their cars.
For this weekend’s race in Shanghai, three teams have made changes around the driver’s cockpit area.
At Red Bull (RB), they’ve changed the shape of the headrest behind the driver’s helmet to help manage the airflow better. This should make the air flow smoother around the car.
Mercedes and Williams focused on the halo area. Mercedes added small flicks on both sides of the cockpit behind the halo. These changes should create small spirals in the air to help control the airflow out of the cockpit, making it smoother towards the rear wing.
For Williams, they adjusted the halo’s front part to increase the angle. This makes the airflow around the halo neater and reduces losses in the cockpit area. Better airflow to the rear and beam wing improves aerodynamics.
Dave Robson, Williams’ head of vehicle performance, said that even though these changes seem small, the cockpit area is crucial for distributing airflow around the car. He found it interesting that other teams also made changes in this area for the same race.
He explained that they made these changes after seeing some issues with airflow around the halo in previous races. They wanted to make sure the airflow losses from the cockpit area go to the back of the car.
Robson said two important things about these upgrades: they show that small details matter, and they’re cheap and quick to do. These small changes can add up and make a difference in performance. He mentioned that they’re also working on bigger aero upgrades, so these cockpit changes fit in well as smaller, affordable improvements.
