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Formula 1’s rules revolution for 2026 is so big that teams were always going to switch their development focus onto it as early as possible.
That is why F1’s in-season upgrade battle has been a lot less aggressive during the 2025 campaign than is usual.
(Lead image courtesy of Daniele Roversi)
For the most part, any big ticket items that have appeared had been worked on early enough in the year that they did not divert too much resource from the all-new cars.
Even things like the multitude of bespoke Monza low downforce wings that appeared for the Italian Grand Prix were committed to in the distant past.
Some teams have been more aggressive than others though – with Red Bull and Racing Bulls in particular having continued bringing floor developments.
Let’s not forget that Ferrari also elected to work on a revised rear suspension layout that arrived at the Belgian Grand Prix in July.
But while such big developments are the exception rather than the rule as F1 enters the home stretch of the final flyaways, it would be wrong to say that the development taps have been turned off totally.
In fact, what we are seeing is that, with the gaps between teams so small, any lap time gain from updates has potential for a big relative benefit. So a trend has emerged for a ‘cheap and cheerful’ approach.
The focus is very much on exploiting areas of the car that do not require much time nor development resources, but can potentially unlock a decent step forward.
As Sauber’s sporting director Inaki Rueda recently explained, the whole upgrade path is completely different this year.
“In a normal season, we would say, ‘OK we’re going to make this upgrade at this race, and this upgrade at this race,'” he said.
“At the moment, the process is more that it has stalled for 2025. So this is the 2025 car and there are two or three upgrades coming in terms of reliability.
“But then occasionally there will be something that’s, ‘oh maybe why don’t we try this?’ But there is not a very scheduled development, as we usually would have.”
That ‘why don’t we try this’ attitude has manifested itself in one area of the car where teams do look like they are going to continue tinkering for a while: brake ducts.
As F1 came back from its summer break at the Dutch Grand Prix, it was no coincidence that two teams had gone for tweaks here.
One of these was Sauber, which elected to make some modifications to its rear brake duct vanes.
As Rueda explained: “Right now, we shifted all of our main focus on 2026.
“But there are sometimes things that you can get with CFD, which doesn’t also require windtunnel running. Or things that maybe you’ve tried in the past that you were not sure about, and now you can just rerun it with CFD. So it’s the low hanging fruit.
“It’s not something you spend a lot of time [on]. If you look at it, we haven’t redone the whole brake drum. It’s just an appendage to an existing brake drum.
“So also from a cost cap point of view, we’re not really doing all of the brake drum, we’re just adding. We’re basically gluing a winglet to an existing brake duct.”
Another team that brought upgraded rear brake ducts was Alpine, which is one of the squads that aggressively stopped work on its car this year so it could focus on getting the most of the 2026 rules switch.
As technical director David Sanchez said about work in this area: “I doubt there’s anyone developing in anger a floor, or something which is high cost or high resource demand.
“But this area, on the brake duct, is quite cheap and quick to develop or evaluate.”
He added: “This sort of development is just a panel on the rear brake duct. It’s not a big component. It doesn’t require a lot of design time or design resource. So that’s why I’m saying it’s quite cheap.”
Sanchez said that while the majority of design staff had been told to prioritise the 2026 car, that did not mean everyone was ignoring potential improvements that could be made for this year.
“We keep having people thinking in the background,” he explained. “And when an idea comes up, if it’s quick and easy to evaluate, we have a go in CFD. And then if we like it, we see if we can bring it to the race car.”
One of the reasons why brake duct development remains attractive is that small improvements here can help deliver a multitude of gains.
As Sachez said: “I think this area is powerful for many aspects. One is for direct downforce, one is for how you manipulate the airflow and the wheel wake, which will impact the floor performance.
“And then there could be other implications on the tyre cooling. So it’s quite a productive area, if everything works.”
Rueda added: “This area serves a lot of purposes. It serves the purpose of helping bleed the flow from the floor, helping bleed the flow from the bodywork, and also it helps harness the heat in the tyre.
“The heat in the tyre comes from the contact patch, of course, but also from the brakes inside the tyre, inside the wheel.
“We’ve got these big, glowing red brakes and making sure that the least of that energy as possible actually radiates through the rim is a big, big exercise. These winglets play a part in that.”
It is clear then that even at this stage of the season teams have not totally shut down upgrade ideas for the remainder of 2025.
However, committing to bringing any to the track will depend on them offering a big bang for their bucks – which means minimal use of resources and potentially maximum returns.
That is a state of play that is as true for the squads battling in the tight midfield pack as it is for those at the front.
Even McLaren says that the thought process continues even if the flow of parts is not as rapid.
Chief operating officer Piers Thynne said at Monza: “We continue to evolve and learn every time we run the car.
“We haven’t turned off any thoughts around adding more performance to this year’s car as, of course, the challenge of 2026 is looming.
“It’s a very large one for us and every team, so we pragmatically look at how we balance resources this year to next year, bearing in mind the timeline.
“For every day that passes, race one next year gets ever closer.”
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