Ferrari has arrived in Austin with what should be its last Formula 1 car update of 2026.
From what we can see, it’s not a massive change – just small changes to the details in various areas, but as I often say, they all add up.
To be honest, Ferrari has not been that far behind as far as performance is concerned. It’s been points lost through execution and decision-making. I know that Lewis Hamilton put his hand up as to not pitting under the VSC in Singapore, for instance, but that’s just one example of Ferrari’s indecisions costing it.
Without doubt, Hamilton has lots of experience when it comes to making pit calls – some good, some bad – but my concern with the driver overruling the team is that for any driver, they only have their own information, and at most that of the cars in front and behind them, as to what the tyre situation is. The team has – or at least should have – the information from all of the cars still running, so a much broader picture of what is happening, so it should be able to make a better decision.
I say ‘should’ here because I have no idea if Ferrari looks any further than its own cars and also there seems to be a bit of a reluctance for anyone to put their heads above the parapet. If you don’t make decisions, you can never be held responsible for making the wrong decision.
Ferrari has also thrown away quite a few points by not allowing whatever driver is fastest to just press on – again, that falls into the reactiveness of decision making.
Anyway, that’s my moan for today – onto the developments. As I said, from what I can see, it is small detail changes.
The purple fin separating the radiator intake from the coke bottle undercut seems to have increased in size slightly. As the car speed increases, the radiator will not be able to flow the volume of air that is presented to it – when this happens, the inlet duct will start to spill around the outer body surface. This fin will reduce the adverse effect this spillage would have on the undercut sidepod.
In reality, it means that the floor foot vanes (bargeboards) will perform more consistently.
As for the sidepods, there’s a change to the overall profile. The upper surface is now lower at the rear, inducing more downwash over that upper surface. This means that the sidepod’s volume at its trailing edge has been reduced, opening up the coke bottle section between the inside of the rear brake duct and the inner body surface.
Also, the small undercut below the CEVA decal looks like it has also been increased in depth. These small changes in body profile reduce the amount of airflow that is presented to the outer edge of the underfloor – airflow in that area will be pulled under the underfloor by the low pressure underneath the car, and in turn that will reduce the overall downforce produced by the underfloor.
To go hand in hand with the changes at the sidepod inlet and the sidepod itself are novelties in the diffuser area. On the outer upper trailing edge corner, Ferrari has gone from a simple gurney flap (highlighted in green) to a more sophisticated vane (highlighted in purple). This outer corner is one area that can suffer from airflow separation problems. The new vane connects it to the multiple turning vanes mounted on the inner surface of the rear brake ducts.
Ferrari has also introduced changes to the diffuser vanes (highlighted in blue). There are probably further changes, but the obvious is the different trim to the lower trailing edge corner – this new detail should instigate a vortex, perhaps even two vortices, coming off that now-90° rear corner. If so, this will help seal that splitter to the track surface, improving the performance of the actual diffuser inboard of them.
Anything like this, when you are attempting to work the diffuser and underfloor harder, can very easily increase sensitivity to the track surface so lead to pointy downforce. However, in Austin, because of the bumpy track surface, Ferrari will probably be running the car just that little bit softer and, with that, a millimetre or two higher. The same is true for other teams that might be suffering from the same problems – so Mercedes might be able to get a better performance from its updates introduced in Malaysia (Bahrain).
Overall, it’s great to see at least four teams and eight drivers battling with each other, that’s what racing should be about – on top of that, as a small team, it is good to see Racing Bulls keeping those four big teams honest.
