Piola: Did French GP updates match "substantial" promises?

A lot of promise over upgrade packages preceded the French Grand Prix, and internally, that rang true; Renault and Honda both had new power unit packages, but these weren't used by all of their respective teams. Externally, there were definite tweaks - but not the complete overhaul that some expected.

After the controversial race in Canada, a third of the 2019 Formula 1 season had been completed. It was a neat milestone for each of the teams to take stock of the season so far and, on their collective return to Europe, set about bringing their cars to the next level.

With Giorgio Piola's illustrations, some of those new additions are laid bare - and based on the on-track performance, the success of each can be assessed.

Ferrari floor-less, not flawless

With all the pre-season hype, Ferrari has had to take a back seat to Mercedes - watching the Silver Arrows storm to every single victory so far this season in an irrepressible display of dominance.

Although Ferrari's engine is strong, there's something fundamentally wrong with the SF90 that turns it into a mess in the corners. So Ferrari arrived at Paul Ricard with a new aerodynamic package: new front and rear wings and a new floor appeared in first practice.

The target was not to necessarily enact an immediate turn-around in performance, but rather to set and evaluate a new development course.

"In France we will have a few small evolutions," said team principal Mattia Binotto before the sessions began. "Elements that represent a useful step for us in defining the direction we will take in developing the car.

"What we will be bringing won't be the solution to our problems, but the technical feedback we get from these evolutions will be important for the next steps we take."

Post-practice, the new floor - featuring a collection of fins in a similar vein to the arrangement trialled in last year's Japanese Grand Prix - was immediately peeled off, again proving to be a problem child for Ferrari.

The front and rear wings remained - as new endplates for each offered a new approach to working the airflow.

At the front, the endplate featured a small fin on a newly flattened footplate, aiming to issue more guidance outwards along the top at the expense of squashing the vortex produced underneath. The endplate also had a small rectangular cut-out, a common addition (or rather, a common subtraction) across the grid. That gives a little more space for the airflow in the top corner of the wing to spill outwards and combine with any vorticity produced.

At the rear, the mass of strakes at the bottom of the endplate had been clipped off. This is a tactic Renault tried for Canada, and seems to allow for a little extra airflow expansion at the rear - making more use of the low pressure zone produced inside and behind the diffuser.

Although Sebastian Vettel grumpily contended that the new upgrades were "not the step that we expected", Binotto was more diplomatic and suggested that Ferrari was on the right lines.

"The data we got is matching with what we were expecting, so in that respect we are happy," he said. "We know it is not sufficient for what we are looking for, but, as I said, it was important for us to understand at least the direction and we got relevant data for that."

Renault's home improvements

Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul promised a "substantial" upgrade - something special - for the race at Le Castellet. As the manufacturer's home race, the pressure was most certainly on.

Daniel Ricciardo got access to a brand new B-spec internal combustion engine, which he used to good effect throughout the weekend - breaking into Q3 and finishing seventh on the road before receiving penalties for making last-lap passes off-track.

Renault made its aerodynamic upgrades available to both drivers; a new nose featured a Mercedes-inspired cape section to trim off any lift produced at the front. With the cape, the airflow is forced to take a longer path underneath, producing a lower-pressure concentration on the underside to sharpen up the front end.

A new bargeboard package also appeared, as Renault continues to seek aerodynamic gains with its RS19 chassis. So far, the developments to the car have slowly brought the team into play at the head of the midfield, after a disappointing start to 2019.

By extending the turning vanes to the top of the sidepod, the team now has more control over how it manages the tail of the front-wheel wake. This also pairs up with some reconfigured bargeboards, which have increased in complexity.

"We need to investigate [our upgrades] a bit more," said Abiteboul after the race. "Some of them definitely paid out. I have to accept that we didn't bring all that was planned, [and] some of the upgrades have been delayed.

"Some of the upgrades are not totally clear-cut and need further analysis, probably at a track where it's more straightforward. The behaviour of the soft compound was confusing any sort of analysis over the weekend."

Reflective Red Bull's exhausting weekend

Red Bull's fortunes were inexplicably mixed at Paul Ricard. Max Verstappen got the most out of the RB15 and split the two Ferraris, while Pierre Gasly floundered - only scraping a point after Ricciardo's brace of time penalties for track limits transgressions.

The next round in Austria takes place at Red Bull's home circuit, so the team must reflect on a slightly tricky weekend in France to get both cars fighting for more than just fourth place at the Red Bull Ring.

Sporting a new mirror design in France, Red Bull has already demonstrated its ability to look back. And while the mirrors only contribute the tiniest of slithers to the overall performance, it's worth making sure they have as little impact as possible.

Perhaps taking a leaf from Williams's early season playbook, but without the illegality, Red Bull flattened out its mirrors and ensured they have significantly more ability to shove airflow outwards. Helping that was a semi-elliptical shape that fits to the overall shroud, which from side-on fits the legality bounds of the mirror design, but ultimately assisted the outboard guidance of the airflow.

There was also a change to the wastegate positioning at the rear, perhaps linked to the new Honda turbocharger, and perhaps seems to be a way of pushing more energised, fast-moving exhaust gases at the underside of the rear wing. In that, there's a little bit more downforce on offer.