Explained: The five key changes behind Red Bull’s biggest upgrade of F1 2023

Here is every upgrade that each team has brought to the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix, with Red Bull introducing their biggest update package of the 2023 season to date.

Lewis Larkam

21 Jul 2023

Red Bull

Front corner - An enlarged front brake duct exit to cope with the greater brake energy and low average speed of the Hungarian Grand Prix circuit.

Rear Corner - An Enlarged rear brake duct exit for more cooling with winglets to add some local load and improve the exit condition suited the requirements of brake cooling at the Hungarian circuit.

Sidepod inlet - Changing the aspect ratio of the inlet has improved the pressure at the entry to the radiator duct and therefore the cooling efficiency ahead of one of the more difficult circuits for car cooling.

Coke/Engine Cover - Having revised the inlet duct a wider sidepod panel was necessary and utilises the greater inlet pressure to exploit the inlet improvements. This extends to the rear suspension and revises the cooling air exit path.

Floor Body - The re-shaped sidepod has led to subtle floor edges changes to work with the upstream surfaces, which has extracted some more local load.

Ferrari

Front wing - The specificities of the Budapest track layout are requiring a high downforce configuration. This front wing flap update simply gives the necessary aero balance range authority.

Mercedes

Front wing endplate - Lifts vortexes shed off diveplane which in turn interacts more favourably with front tyre wake, improving flow to the rear of the car.

Front suspension - Reduced camber improves flow quality along the chassis side and on to the front of the floor, resulting in increased floor load.

Rear wing - Circuit specific - larger wing tip cutout increases the mass flow under the wing tip, which increases local downforce and drag.

Alpine

Front wing - A bigger front wing flap to rebalance the higher rear downforce level that we will use at the Hungaroring this weekend.

McLaren

No updates submitted for this event.

Alfa Romeo

No updates submitted for this event.

Aston Martin

Coke/Engine Cover - Part of the cooling setup options the larger exit area increases the volume of cooling flow exited from the bodywork.

Haas

Floor Body - The research work of the aero department this time have been focused in the management of the flow expansion of the car underneath affecting the shape of the component that is called "Floor Body".

AlphaTauri

Front wing - The central front wing changes result in a more efficient generation of downforce. The outboard flap tip loading creates a more favourable interaction between the front wing and front wheel wake losses, improving onset flow quality to the rest of the car.

Nose - The nose change results in more efficient generation of downforce working in combination with the above changes to the central front wing.

Floor Body - The wider central floor generates increased load through local surface curvature changes which accelerate the local flow and generates lower pressure under the floor as a result.

Rear Wing - The rear wing tip changes give an efficient increase in loading of the wing elements.