Was a secret front wing upgrade key to Ferrari’s US GP dominance?

Ferrari’s dominance of the United States Grand Prix came on a weekend when it stood out from its rivals in not bringing any upgrades. Or, to be more accurate, none that it officially declared.

With closest challengers McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes all introducing developments at the Austin track, the FIA’s official submission sheet that details changes showed no tweaks to the Ferrari car.

But that does not tell the true story of Ferrari’s approach to the USA weekend, as there are certain tweaks teams can make that do not have to be declared.

Article 19.1c) of F1’s sporting regulations, which covers what items teams have to tell the FIA about, states that this includes “all major aerodynamic and bodywork components and assemblies that have not been run at a previous Competition or TCC [test] and are intended to be run at the competition.”

Indeed, after seeing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz take a 1-2 finish, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur repeated several times that just because no upgrades were declared, it did not mean the Prancing Horse did not have any.

“It is not that because we are not declaring something that we are not bringing something,” he said. “We have to be clear that the upgrades are about the external shape.”

Ferrari did not elaborate on what exactly was new for Austin, but speculation has surrounded the possibility that it brought some new specification front wings.

While these externally are identical to what it first introduced in Singapore, insiders suggest Ferrari had spent some time since the last race working on optimising their construction to help exploit aero elasticity more.

In a season when having a more flexible front wing has been instrumental in better balancing a car – helping address the low-speed understeer and high-speed oversteer characteristics of the current ground effect machinery – Ferrari had perhaps been too cautious at the start of the season.

And while it privately felt that others were pushing the boundaries too much in how much flexing was going on, recent FIA clarifications that such behaviour is allowed opened the door for Maranello to go down this route itself now too.

A more optimised flexi-wing is not something that will transform a car but, in a season where the gaps between teams are so close, it is a detail that can have an impact.

Speaking about the value of a good flexi…