As you’d expect, F1 teams can be a little coy when it comes to showing off all the details of their latest challengers ahead of the season.

This is especially true when the design elements in question might be quickly copied, which would ultimately come at the expense of those who were first to the scene.

Williams and Sauber: From small acorns…

You might be mistaken in thinking that only the top teams come up with nice, new, neat solutions and those following in their wake, further down the pack, are the ones that then come up with their own version.

However, more often than not, it’s actually the reverse of that, with the smaller teams needing to find something that provides a small edge, only for it to be reverse-engineered by the bigger teams, who have more resources at their disposal and can push the design further than their counterparts.

Williams arrived in Melbourne with a fresh take on the rear wing’s tip section, with what looks like a bite taken out of the upper corner of the surface.

The tip section and how it connects to the endplate has already been an area of intense development for the teams during this regulatory cycle, with numerous solutions being dreamt up to counter-act their intent.

First to the punch in that respect were Alpine and Aston Martin, as they both conjured up similar ‘semi-detached’ tip sections at the Monaco Grand Prix in 2023, with the rest of the teams following suit, which has led us to a point where all ten teams now have some variation of the design on their car.

The latest iteration of this solution that’s appeared on the FW47 is by no means a game changer but, given the development that’s already been undertaken by the teams so far, it’s interesting we’re still seeing new solutions and moreover, one that might interest their fellow competitors.

It’s likely the reason why we didn’t see the design appear during pre-season testing, with the team opting to use their regular squared-off solution in Bahrain instead.

Interestingly, there was no mention of this change in the pre-event car presentation document but given that it’s more likely a trim, rather than an entirely new piece, they may not need to note it, after all there’s been far larger items gone unlisted by teams in the past.

It may also be possible for the team to trim away more of the new notch-style cutout in the uppermost corner of the tip section depending on their requirements, which is something we may see in the coming races.

Sauber arrive with a clutch of new parts at the first race

The Sauber C45 might have been the most visually different challenger on the grid in Australia, if we compare it with what the team had available in Bahrain.

And, whilst some of that could be down to scheduling, it’s likely that the team wanted to get performance baseline data from their current package before installing the remaining components we’ve seen this weekend.

There’s a noticeable difference to the flap layout on the two wings, not only in terms of the movable sections, with the chord height and trailing edge geometry completely overhauled but also in terms of the non-moveable sections beside the nose.

Furthermore, there’s a considerable shift in how the team now treat the endplate and flap juncture, with the previously outwardly rolled tips abandoned in favour of their inwardly rolled counterparts, which have been in vogue with their rivals for some time now.

One aspect of Sauber’s design overhaul that might make their rivals sit up and take note though, is their new sidepod layout, which features an outcropping under the inlet that’s similarly sized, in the outboard region, to the mid-wing above and extends around the sidepod’s flank.

The layout pushes the bounds of what’s been done geometrically in this portion of the car to this point and will seemingly improve cooling, owing to the resultant change in the inlet’s shape, whilst also providing a boost to the airflow that moves around the sidepod’s shoulder.

Of course, this detail will be of interest to some more than others, given they have a similar base sidepod layout to Sauber.

This would include McLaren and Ferrari but the design might also lend itself to the Aston Martin and Haas design schemes, with some subtle tweaks to the surrounding architecture likely required.

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