
"The long, medium and short term forecasts for the race all consistently predicted an 80% plus chance of rain during the race.

How did that impact on the drivers' races? Rain was forecast for Sunday, but it never materialised.

During the race, tyre life was lower than expected and we ended up having to switch from our planned two-stop strategy, to a revised three-stop strategy." "The single laptime difference between the medium and soft compounds was about one second in favour of the soft tyre and about 0.5 seconds during a longer run. How did Pirelli's soft and medium compounds perform, and what was the lap time difference between each? "It is fair to say that Rubens extracted close to the maximum ultimate performance out of the car on that lap - it was an impressive time and gave the team a welcome lift." Īll changes aim to accelerate air flowing under the flaps close to the endplates to boost downforce production close to endplates (thus the inner section of the third flap remains higher than the inner section like the old spec => ) so as to counterside the less downforce produced by the new flaps which by their side offer a cleaner airflow towards the car body behind. Finally the flaps are reshaped having less curvy inner tips (5) and a shorter flap separator (6). The endplate is simpler and lacks both the extra low height outer vertical fence (3) and the triangular horizontal fin at the rear top of the endplate (4). The new one is shorter and features an additional L-shaped element (2). Another change took place to the extension of the endplate horizontal section under the flaps. It is still triple profiled with the main flap to be raised higher close to the endplates and to be half length slotted (1) compared to the fully slotted former design.

The new spec is totally new speaking for both the endplates and flaps. The new spec was again tested in Valencia but yet not used in race. A new lower downforce front wing spec was put under test in Canada but both drivers were forced to abandon it in wet slippery race conditions choosing the higher downforce former spec which ensured better grip.
