Giorgio Piola's standout 2019 Bahrain GP practice updates

The hot temperatures at the Sakhir circuit have encouraged several teams to open out their engine cover exits to keep the powertrain from overheating.

Renault has made a drastic change; the top of the exit was previously in line with its upper rear suspension wishbones, but this exit has been raised to expel a greater amount of heat.

As can be seen from Giorgio Piola's image below, Mercedes has also made some changes to the apertures on top of its sidepods.

It has removed the slot behind the halo and extended the opening next to the halo mounting point.

This takes some of the hot air dissipated by the radiator and sends it down the face of the sidepods, conditioning it with the gill-like fins positioned inside to thin out the boundary layer slightly and improve flow attachment.

Mercedes has also added an extra strake to its rear wing endplate, which will add a little bit more control over the airflow starting to rotate at the point where it flares outwards.

Bargeboard development

The new regulations have placed a greater level of importance on the bargeboards in 2019.

Although not responsible for producing downforce directly, they enable other components - such as the floor - to do so more efficiently.

In this area, there's already been a number of changes.

McLaren and Toro Rosso have both emerged with new packages in Bahrain, while Racing Point has dialled back to a design seen in testing.

McLaren's bargeboard package features a new leading edge that has a collection of short-chord teeth at the front to aggressively turn airflow around the sidepods of the car.

These pair up with the new vertical fins, which form something of a pre-bargeboard before the main panels, driving airflow outwards to keep the floor protected from the turbulence of the tyre wake.

Toro Rosso's new bargeboards are not quite as outwardly complex as McLaren's are, but do feature a number of aggressive changes.

The primary three pieces are now reconfigured, largely to make the second element longer and shorten the third to keep a more consistent attachment of flow.

Although the serrations on the top remain, these are redistributed among each piece.

The brackets that keep these together are slanted downwards to help further direct airflow in that direction around the bottom of the sidepods.

Racing Point has reverted to a specification of sidepod bargeboards and mirrors used in testing.

While the geometry was revised for Australia, which was still seen during technical checks on Thursday in Bahrain, the team rolled back to the testing specification for FP1.