China F1 upgrades in full, from tweaked headrests to new floors

However, with the fight in the F1 pack so intense this year, everyone equally knows that small gains can make a big difference in the pecking order.

That is why several outfits did bring some new parts to Shanghai, with Alpine and Haas bringing pretty extensive updates, while Mercedes, Williams and RB all made smaller tweaks to their cars.

With just one free practice session at the teams’ disposal, all of the changes seen in China needed to work practically out of the box, even if new parc ferme rules did allow for some tweaking of settings between the sprint and qualifying.

Cockpit area tweaks

The Mercedes, Williams and RB trio all made changes to a similar area on their cars, as they either adjusted or added to their halo fairings, or in RB’s case, adjusted the shape of the headrest.

These alterations won’t yield a significant performance benefit, but do help tidy up any inefficiencies that might have been present previously.

Of the changes, the ones made to the VCARB 01 are by far the most interesting, as the team has raised and reshaped the portion of the headrest behind the driver’s helmet.

The headrest is now much taller than before, as it sits more in line with the back of the driver’s helmet, rather than a few inches below it (see inset).

As a consequence, the section of bodywork behind the headrest and below the airbox and rollover has also been revised, in order that everything smoothly transitions rearward.

Furthermore, where a single spar was previously mounted between the two sections, there’s now a pair of shorter spars in its place.

Haas goes all in on update

Haas opted to introduce a raft of new parts at the Chinese Grand Prix in an effort to capitalise on its good start to the season and with the intent of climbing clear of those nipping at its heels.

It is clear that the VF-24 is a more rounded challenger than its predecessor, and so it’s unsurprising that the updates that have arrived aren’t completely new in concept but simply build upon the foundations that had already been laid.

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Haas VF-24 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

This starts with the floor fences, as they are realigned to improve the airflow’s behaviour locally and to tie in the improvement with changes made to the front corner of the floor.

The alterations made to the fences are…