TECH TALK – All the Silverstone updates revealed!

JP, I'm going to make your knees work here. Look at all these lovely bits and bobs. Air in equals air out, of course, but what you do with it in the middle, that is the trick. In this case, X marks the spot and it's a really beautiful little piece of design. People are always loving it when we take a close look at the back end of their car. It's all right, we got the shot. Well, there you go, they're pleased about that. Hello and welcome to Tech Talk. We're at Silverstone for the 100th year of the British Grand Prix and with every single F1 team located in the immediate area around the circuit, well, not quite every team. Most of the teams and many of the suppliers located in the immediate area around the circuit, well, you do expect to see a lot of upgrades. However, this is a sprint weekend, which means there's perhaps not as many upgrades as we're used to seeing. That doesn't mean there isn't an awful lot of interesting stuff to go and get into and get investigating on and let's go and do exactly that. Follow me. McLaren have not only introduced some new paintwork on their car, they've also introduced some new bodywork parts with the position of their rear jacks means that they perhaps don't really want us to have a closer look at it because in this case, X marks the spot. JP, I'm going to make your knees work here because we're going to go down here and have a closer look at the rear end of the McLaren because there's some really lovely details in here. Now, I'm going to work around their jack positioning system. I'm going to have to call it that. Let's get down here because you can see their aerodynamic components around the exhaust tailpipe have been revised quite significantly. And again, this is a big area that a lot of teams are developing for this season and this season only. And we'll come back to that a little bit further down the pit lane. Very large rear gurney on the rear wing of the car here as well. You can see how far it extends from the trailing edge of the wing. That's quite a big gurney on this. What is actually, while it's a high speed circuit, it's also a very high downforce circuit. And then come with me around here to the side of the car because this is where a lot of the big development's been going on along the edge of the floor of the McLaren. Now, compared to some of the cars, this area down here is really quite plain. It's just a straight floor edge and you'll see some really detailed little bits and bobs on some of the other teams from McLaren with their restricted CFD and wind tunnel time. But wind tunnel availability as a result of winning last year's World Championship have really been limited on what they can do. So they're having to wait with their development. Doesn't seem to be slowing them down too much, does it? Also, some really quite nice changes around this element of the car, which I am going to insist on calling the bargeboard. But still more to come in this area as McLaren learns more about this car and also more about these regulations. And that's becoming a critical factor. There's also a really nice change down here in the leading edge of the floor, but it's quite hard to see from this angle. You won't be able to quite see. It's down there. Hopefully, we can bring you a slightly better photograph or image of it a little bit later in the edit. But while I get up from my knees and won't expose you to that on Tech Talk, because well, they're great knees, but they just are older than they perhaps should have been. We'll head down to the next car and have a look at that. Down at Williams, the home race for this team might not be the best race this season. The team are talking, though, quite big in terms of the upgrades they're going to bring later in the season, even to the point where I heard it described as almost a new car expected perhaps for the Hungarian Grand Prix, maybe a bit later after the summer. But it will be interesting to see how different that car looks. But before we get to that, I'm just having a really close look at this car in a few details. And there's some little elements which I think we haven't covered that have changed on this car so far this season on Tech Talk. If you come down here, look along the floor edge, you have this serrated element along the side of the floor. And it's a really beautiful little piece of design and something that harks back to the designs of 2020 when the floor regulation changed and 2021 where we saw some slightly different rear floor treatments. But of course, these rear floors are all very similar conceptually to those floors seen in that previous generation of car. And then JP, follow me down with the camera just behind the bargeboard section here. You can see this vertical element, which I like to call the monolith. It's got very rounded off top. And if you look back at how the team started the season, you could actually see that was squared off. Now, it seems like quite a minor change, but all of these details add up. All of these little changes make something that actually works quite well, even down to these little elements alongside the halo. Again, good aerodynamic effect. Then have a look inside the cockpit, because it's quite rare. The driver's seat is not actually fitted to the car. So you get a look at what the car looks like inside the cockpit when the driver's seat is out. Look at all of these lovely bits and bobs, got fire extinguisher, driver's drink system, got the brake lines, all sorts of electronical components in there as well. And so you've got to think with the driver in there, all of those components, some of them the driver needs to access, some of them you definitely don't want the driver to play with, because racing drivers are not the best technically, generally speaking. But let's move further along the grid. Well, there's been a lot of noise about Mercedes at Silverstone. Just like that. Well, pit stops are not the only thing Mercedes needs to hone down. This car is probably, at this point, the favourite to win the British Grand Prix. But Mercedes themselves have bought some interesting upgrades, but very small upgrade package, because it is, of course, that sprint weekend. A curious change on the Ferrari is something that caught my eye yesterday, and now we can have a bit of a closer look at. And if you come around here on the back of the Ferrari, you can see the rear brake duct outlets. Now, that's those silver bit you can just see in on the inner face of the wheel, just here. Now, this section here is much bigger than you would expect to see at track like Silverstone. That's a really high level of cooling for the rear brakes. Now, Silverstone doesn't have any particularly massive braking events. It's a high speed blowing circuit. So big brake ducts like this should probably be for aerodynamic reasons rather than for pure brake cooling. And that's what a lot of teams are playing with, but really interested to see how and why Ferrari are going with that size of rear brake cooling outlet, because air in equals air out, of course, but what you do with it in the middle, that is the trick. And there's been a lot of talk about Ferrari's rear wheels, and are they using it to maybe control tyre temperatures, which could be a big factor in the British Grand Prix in the English summertime, which for once doesn't include any rain. Also at the back of the Ferrari, an update we can't see, and we haven't heard much detail about, is a new power unit in the back of these cars. Ferrari are one of those teams that have been allowed to introduce an upgraded power unit in season underneath the regulations for 2026. Now, we don't know how extensive that upgrade is, and the FIA haven't yet released the information about the upgrades, but we do know that Ferrari changed its power units out for the Austrian Grand Prix, and we're waiting to find out just how extensive the power unit changes are. I did have a look under the bodywork yesterday, but didn't really see too much visually difference, so I don't think they've gone for that large turbocharger that has been rumoured, but still a lot more to learn about the Italian car. Right, JP, I want you to follow me, because we're going to have a close look at the Alpine. This isn't anything specifically new, but we have not really had a really close look at these elements around the rear wings of the car, and it's a great opportunity to have a really close up, because look, you can see it doesn't look to be the most finessed bit of manufacturing, but that's because of the cost cap. The teams can't go into great detail, but also these are experimental aerodynamic parts. The teams will not spend a huge amount of money and investment making it exactly right until they finished the design finally, and that means running it on the real car. But come down here at what the, there's a bit of talk about this, because this isn't a design that's been banned for next season. You see that little plate in the tailpipe of the exhaust, that exhaust plume manipulation device, which some people call the flick tail mode. Well, these devices have been outlawed for the 2027 season, but that's the new story, that's the press release story. We'll have to wait and see till next year's cars, whether that's really been ruled out. Let's move on. While Red Bull Racing do not win the award for having the closest factory to the circuit, that's Aston Martin and Cadillac, who are basically on the circuit grounds almost. One's on one side of the road, one on the other side of the road. Red Bull Racing are almost, almost in sight of the racetrack. If it wasn't for the Milton Keynes snow dome, you'd probably be able to see the factory, but that doesn't mean they've bought major upgrades. What they have changed though is very subtle, and it's around here, down the back of the car. This is really all about a tiny area of development on the inner edge of the rear wheels, where they change these aerodynamic components, and all of that works in conjunction with the hot air coming out of the rear wheel, and now the mechanics obviously don't want us to look too closely at it, because they've come to inspect their car in great detail. It's all right, we got the shot, and as usual, Red Bull always loving it when we take a close look at the back end of their car. It's a sport, and it's a sport I enjoy, just like Formula One. Well, there you have it, a very quick overview of some of the new and interesting bits and bobs on the cars, up and down the pit lane here at Silverstone. Now, you may notice we didn't cover every single car this week, and that's deliberate. I mean, for example, the Cadillac hasn't appeared on our show in a particular amount of detail. Well, there's a bit of the Cadillac. Well, that's deliberate. We are going to be taking a much more detailed and closer look at some of these cars during the season, with special dedicated episodes of Tech Talk. Cadillac will be one of those. We've already talked about the fact that Audi is going to be one as well, but there's so much more to come, and so many more lovely engineering details to investigate. For now, though, thanks for watching us here on Tech Talk.