6 races in 8 weeks: why F1's frantic finale is anything but predictable

As in the latter part of any season they are looking towards the following year’s car, but this time they also have their eyes on the very different 2026 project.

While they can’t run 2026 models in the wind tunnel or conduct CFD work until January 1, they are obviously already doing what they can within the rules, and mechanical work is not restricted.

Over the past couple of months teams have gradually switched their focus away from their 2024 cars, and for the most part the updates that we will see in Austin have been in the pipeline for weeks or months, and have only just reached the track.

Will upgrades change course of title race?

Having said that, those directly involved in the title fight can’t afford to turn the 2024 development tap off completely too soon. Red Bull boss Christian Horner has admitted that valuable lessons were learned about the shortcomings of the RB20 in recent races, and at least some of what we see in Austin will have been signed off pretty recently.

“I think that the encouraging thing was the car reacted as we as we hoped it would,” Horner said after the race in Singapore. “And what our tools were telling us. So I think that’s the encouraging factor.

“And I think that the team is starting to get a direction and understanding of where some of the limitations are, and some of the causes of limitations, that opens up development paths and veins that hopefully will be productive.”

The race to bring new parts to Austin has to be considered in the context of an intriguing aspect of the 2024 season – the degree to which teams have often struggled to make their upgrades, especially revised floors, work as they are intended to do.

Almost every team has introduced new bits that were supposed to bring performance, only to find they either didn’t match what the simulations said, or created compromises elsewhere. We’ve often seen drivers swapping back and forth between old and new aero elements within a race weekend, sometimes ending up with an ad hoc combination.

“I think every team has one more upgrade more or less in the pipeline, or one more thing that they were going to try and do before the end of the year,” said Carlos Sainz when I asked him about Ferrari’s prospects for Austin and beyond.

“So we could still see some swings in performance. At the same time, we’ve seen that upgrades this year don’t mean performance.

“Upgrades this year mean you try and add load to the car, but sometimes that load translates to lap time, and others  — like us or other teams, Red Bull, Mercedes, except McLaren — it doesn’t always translate to lap time. So let’s see.”

As Sainz noted, one team has successfully managed to avoid such pitfalls. Everything that McLaren has brought to the track appears to have worked, and it has also been relatively cautious in bringing updates since a major package arrived in Miami. Instead the team has perfected a largely unchanged MCL38 – one that has been setting the pace in recent months.

McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall recently gave an intriguing insight into why the strategy of bringing fewer but more substantial updates works.

“Sometimes you just have to hold on a little bit while you wait for a chunk of bits to come all at the same time,” he said. “The advantage in doing that is that often bits don’t combine very well, or as well as you think they would.

“And if you deliver them in one lump, then you know that sort of combination of parts has been in CFD together, it was developed together, it’s been through the wind tunnel together.

“So you can be more confident that that combination of bits works well together, whereas you do it bit-by-bit, you might introduce an upgrade on one part and then work on another part and find out actually it’s a bit compromised by the previous change you made.”

There have been updates on the MCL38 along the way of course, notably a package of tweaks for the Dutch GP. Nevertheless the overall strategy of honing the car you have rather than continually throwing new bits at it and starting afresh to understand it has not gone unnoticed by rivals.

“We’re looking at this a lot,” says Aston Martin boss Mike Krack. “If you compare the pace, and you see when have they made a step, and you try to correlate it with some upgrades, there are some correlations where you can see, okay, this is what has been changed, and what has it potentially done?

“And then you see, for example, the Zandvoort upgrade – it’s a bit here, a bit there, a bit there. So you see how fine and complex these cars have become. And I think it will be foolish not to look at it.”

He adds: “It is possible to make substantial steps with these regulations if you get the car stable, and behaving the way the drivers want it.

“So it is not this pure race for downforce that you used to have in the past. Here it is more about getting the stability, getting the balance and the load as well.”

Mercedes looks for a return to form

Mercedes is one of the teams that hasn’t always got it right in 2024. The team briefly had a race-winning car in the middle of the season, but then got a little lost with a floor upgrade first seen in Spa. Lewis Hamilton is thus cautious about prospects for Austin.

“It’s a good track, it’s one of the best circuits for racing, so I’m looking forward to going there,” he said when I asked him for his thoughts.

“And at least I have a fresh engine! And hopefully our upgrades are there. I know the team are working incredibly hard to bring these upgrades, and over these last three years, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t it.

“Sometimes it doesn’t correlate perfectly to the wind tunnel and CFD. So I’m really hoping, fingers crossed, that we have [the package], and it really works. Last year we brought an upgrade there, and it was great. So kind of praying that it does!”

The bottom line is that the rest of the season will be shaped by how much performance McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari can bolt onto their cars in Austin, and how quickly and successfully they hone those packages.

Will upgrades help or hinder McLaren?

Even the championship leaders can’t guarantee that they’ll get it just right this time. That could present an opportunity for rivals, although McLaren will always have the option of reverting to a previous spec that is likely to still be good enough to win races.

“We are definitely working on upgrades for this season, we are now finalising this,” Andrea Stella noted in Baku. “I don’t want to disclose too much in terms of what and when, but we do have a plan to make the car faster.

“Whether we will be able to do it or not, we will see, because I think we have seen that at this level of development, it’s not an easy task to actually change the specification of the car and get it to work as you expect in your development tools.

“But that’s also why we took a bit more time to try and make sure that what we bring trackside is successful. So yes, I can confirm that we have some stuff coming for the next races.”