F1 Q&A: Verstappen, upgrades and Norris – Andrew Benson answers your questions

We hear a lot about upgrades. What are they and can you give us more details about them? – Nigel

An upgrade is a new part or set of parts intended to improve the performance of the car.

So for example a new front wing, or a new floor, or a new piece of bodywork, if they are aimed at improving performance, that is considered an upgrade.

The problem teams are facing this season is that these upgrades don’t always improve performance.

For example, after Red Bull introduced their first upgrade of the season in Imola, Mercedes technical director James Allison said two races later in Canada that he believed it had actually been a downgrade.

Red Bull denied this loudly and clearly at the time, but as the season progressed and Red Bull struggled more and more, it became increasingly clear that Allison was right.

The problem teams face is that the flow structures created by current Formula 1 cars and the way the aerodynamics work are so complex that the simulation tools at the teams’ disposal are simply not accurate enough to accurately predict how the car will perform on track.

Often teams find that the CFD says one thing, the wind tunnel says another, and then the car behaves differently when it goes out on track.

That’s why it’s taken McLaren so long to introduce a major upgrade since the big one in Miami that made them overnight leaders. They wanted to make absolutely sure it worked, so they didn’t get lost like Red Bull.

And that is exactly the problem Red Bull has with their car at the moment.

The problem is that when a team has fitted a lot of new parts over a period of time and then finds that the car is not behaving as they want it to, it is incredibly difficult to work out what is causing the problem. Especially as there is no way to simulate it.