TECH WEEKLY: What were the reasons behind Aston Martin and Mercedes’ significant Imola updates?

Mercedes and Aston Martin each arrived at Imola with a significant package of updates to their cars, from front to back. But among those various changes, visually two stood out as highly unconventional. Raising interested eyebrows up and down the paddock were the Aston’s new front wing and the Mercedes’ new rear wing.

The upper two flaps of the Aston’s front wing have a pronounced vee indentation in their surface near the outboard end. There were other changes to the profile shape too, but they passed almost unnoticed.

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Aston emphasised that the incidence (angle) of the central section of the wing relative to the first element was greater, suggesting that it was working the upper two harder, with a greater pressure difference between underside and upper surfaces.

There has also been a rearrangement of the slot gap separators, with the removal of those between the first two elements either side of the nose tip and the addition of a new one between the second and third flaps further outboard. In combination with the greater angle of the upper two flaps, it suggests Aston are trying to energise the upper half of the wing more.