Red Bull is developing new floors amid limited weekend upgrades for the Miami Grand Prix sprint.
The race schedule includes teams facing one free practice session in Miami before the sprint qualifiers on Friday afternoon, but McLaren took a big step in this event a year ago with a major upgrade. On that occasion, Red Bull was the dominant car, but this time it is about to close the gap with McLaren. Floor fences and additional camber at the edge of the floor are designed to increase overall load and improve balance.
“It’s pretty stable,” said Paul Monaghan, chief engineer at Red Bull. “Because it’s a sprint race, we can bring it with relatively low risk. It’s an opportunity to do it. We were able to do it. People work really hard in the factory and put it in the car, so that we can enjoy the profits.
“In our judgment, the stability of the flow remains unchanged. Therefore, we are not afraid of anything that is aerodynamic or of its nature.
“Yes, that’s one. Given all the complaints that came out of Bahrain, we’ve worked on a few. Have we done it completely? Maybe not? Yes.
“We know what happened, but it actually affects the treatment. It’s not that easy. It won’t disappear from the car. Can you reduce the size and improve the lap time? Yes.
Apart from Red Bull, Mercedes reduced the camber on the rear wing flaps on the Miami Circuit, while Aston Martin made similar circuit-specific fine-tuning for the front wing, rear wing and beam wings.
Williams makes minor changes to the beamwings with lower layered and lower drag options, while the Alpine has a new front brake duct and front suspension that works together to improve both airflow and cooling efficiency. Sauber also updated the front suspension to improve airflow to the rest of the car as well.