TECH TUESDAY: 0.3s per lap and a sign of things to come – AlphaTauri's latest floor upgrades analysed

AlphaTauri are the centre of attention in this week's Tech Tuesday after the midfield team brought floor upgrades to Australia. But there's far more to the updates than meets the eye, as Mark Hughes explains and Giorgio Piola illustrates.

AlphaTauri introduced a new floor at the Australian Grand Prix: an innocuous-sounding update but one which, when looked at in detail, gives a great insight into how teams go about identifying areas of potential lap time improvement under the ground effect regulations introduced last year. It also underlines the immense amount of work and research which just one update requires.

AlphaTauri’s technical director Jody Egginton talked us through the changes made. “It’s a series of small updates,” he said, “and they form the new baseline from which the car will be improved further. Because what these do is allow you to develop your beam wing, bodywork and other updates, safe in the knowledge that the flow structures of the floor are healthier.