(Motorsport-Total.com) – After a four-week break, Formula 1 returns and marks the final spurt of this season with six races in seven weeks. The US Grand Prix in Austin kicks things off and marks a crucial weekend as the final updates for 2024 are expected.
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The race at the Circuit of the Americas is generally seen as the last big opportunity to present the latest improvements to the current cars. Austin is the start of a tripleheader that includes Mexico and Brazil and is logistically the best place to introduce new parts.
This will be followed by another tripleheader with Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. It is expected that some teams may bring new parts for the low-downforce Las Vegas race, although they are likely to reuse the wing specifications from Monza and Baku.
However, by Qatar it would be too late to see any significant return on the investment unless teams decide to test parts for the 2025 season.
How will updates change the field?
Whatever has been in production over the past few weeks will now be put into action as teams make a final attempt to improve their positions. However, Austin is a sprint weekend, meaning teams have less practice time to adjust updates.
But now they are so used to the format that the initial reluctance to use updates on a sprint weekend is no longer as great as it was last year.
“We all know that we have already started developing the next car, but we are trying to bring a few more small updates,” says Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur. “This will probably be the last update for everyone. Everything is so tight now, every detail can make a difference.”
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Christian Horner, Red Bull team boss, added: “It’s the natural time of the year when all teams bring something new. Ferrari has something bigger and I think Mercedes and McLaren will also present new parts.”
McLaren currently leads the constructors’ championship by 41 points and looks poised to maintain its lead until the end of the year due to the difference in performance with Red Bull in recent races.
But Red Bull has indicated that it has finally understood where mistakes were made in the development of the RB20. Yes, Max Verstappen was 21 seconds behind McLaren’s race winner Lando Norris in Singapore, but still finished a clear second on Red Bull’s worst track.
The flowing 5,514 kilometers of the Circuit of the Americas could give a better picture of whether Red Bull has really turned the corner or not.
This is the second reason why Austin weekend is so important. It marks a return to more traditional tracks with quick changes of direction, in contrast to recent low-downforce tracks like Monza and Baku and maximum downforce and low speeds like Singapore.
Can Red Bull catch up again now?
Austin will therefore provide a clearer picture of what the form curve could look like by the end of the year, with only the Las Vegas race in November being an exception as it is more similar to the Baku race.
“We want to build on the understanding we have and bring to Austin a well-balanced car that inspires confidence in the driver,” says Horner. “It’s a completely different challenge. The first sector is very fast. Parts of the route have been resurfaced, which is an additional variable.”
“It’s a sprint weekend so you have to give it your all from the start. But the whole team has worked incredibly hard to understand the problems, solve them and hopefully have the right improvements to the car.”
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While the focus is on McLaren’s battle against Red Bull, Ferrari could still be in the mix as the team is just 34 points behind Red Bull in third place.
But Ferrari may have the biggest question marks to answer this weekend as it has struggled with bouncing on the most demanding circuits since the summer. The solutions to this problem have not yet been tested on atypical routes such as Monza, Baku and Singapore.
Therefore, Austin will be the litmus test of whether Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have the wherewithal to compete on the demanding layout of COTA.
Will Ferrari get another win?
“We are seeing the numbers we expected when we put the new parts on the car, but we don’t yet have a final answer as to how close we are to McLaren or Red Bull on a normal track,” says Leclerc.
“I’m sure we’ve taken a step forward. We’ll see how big this is in Austin.” Sainz also remains cautious until he has tested Ferrari’s latest specifications on “normal tracks”, but believes Las Vegas could be Ferrari’s best chance of victory.
“I think every team has one last update in the pipeline that they will try out before the end of the year, so we could still see some fluctuations in performance,” says the Spaniard. “At the same time, we’ve seen that upgrades this year don’t always translate into performance.”
“This has happened to us and other teams – Red Bull, Mercedes, apart from McLaren. So we have to see if it makes a difference in Austin and Brazil, all the traditional, classic tracks. Then I think Vegas is our next one “It’s a great opportunity,” says the Ferrari driver.
