Piola's picks: Mercedes and Ferrari's new upgrades

It's only the second round of the 2019 Formula 1 season, but the development race is as hotly contested as the action on track.

There's already plenty of new parts to examine as we work out what directions the individual teams are exploring.

Bahrain is the first of the 'proper' race circuits on the calendar after the opening sojourn in unrepresentative Melbourne, enabling teams to build an understanding of their respective cars' performance on a purpose-built track.

Where this venue diverges from the norm is in its sweltering desert ambients, which often require additional cooling solutions to keep the highly complex powertrains running reliably.

With the help of Giorgio Piola's meticulously crafted illustrations and images, we can pick out some of the key developments.

Chairmen of the (barge)board

The absence of the massively complex front wing furniture has given much more of a role in this year's aerodynamics package to the bargeboards, an area in which the bulk of the teams are pouring vast amounts of resources.

McLaren, en route to its best result since Fernando Alonso's fifth place in Australia last year, emerged with a revised bargeboard concept to better control the wake shed from the front wheels.

Featuring a more detailed leading edge compared with the original specification, it has seven horizontal slots at the very front, paired up with six cascading fins that form a mini-bargeboard (red arrow).

This is a hugely aggressive attitude to turning around the airflow emanating from the front end, and the large horizontal element looping from the top of the main bargeboard has been reprofiled slightly to better angle the airflow fired at the undercut of the sidepod inlet.

It seems that Ferrari has found a novel solution to instil a little extra grip

The front of the bargeboards also now features wave-shaped cuts along the front (blue arrow), shaped to improve the management of the wave kicked up from the wheel when it's in contact with the road.

This is designed to work with the wheel at a range of angles, cleaning up the turbulence and washing it around the bargeboard.

Toro Rosso also brought new developments in this area, which helped rookie Alex Albon on his way to his first points in F1.

Although still broken up into three distinct pieces, these have been reconfigured to reduce the span of the final section, assisting with retaining flow attachment because the flow is less inclined to lose energy to skin friction.

The fin at the leading edge, marked by the red arrow, will produce a tiny bit of lift, but its job is to send airflow downwards along the serrations at the top which spouts airflow downwards towards the undercut of the sidepods.

To cement that direction of flow, the brackets attaching the bargeboards together (yellow arrows) are angled towards the floor.

In doing this, the airflow is able to run along the edge of the floor, building up the pressure differential between the top of the floor and the airflow developing underneath.

Mercedes makes the changes

Fortuitous with its one-two finish in Bahrain, Mercedes was off the pace of Ferrari throughout the weekend.

Nonetheless, the Silver Arrows had brought a few tweaks to Bahrain to capture a little more performance in the battle with Ferrari.

One of them was a slight adaptation of its cooling package, discarding the outlet behind the halo mounting for an extension with the gill-like vent next to it.

The radiators are mounted diagonally within the sidepod, and once the air passes through it is expelled by the vent.

Ferrari is finally showing its hand, meaning that Mercedes has much more performance to find

A low pressure zone behind that vent creates a suction effect to draw the hot air out, which can then fall down the sidepod - trimming the boundary layer slightly to keep airflow attached over the bodywork.

Mercedes also made a change to its rear wing endplates, opting for an extra strake at the rear.

There's plenty of wake to clean up in this area, and the airflow coming between the endplates is given the chance to expand slightly by creating those strakes.

That's going to improve the effect of the suction surface of the rear wing, and also clean up the air which begins to rotate from the flared endplate area.

Those are only minor tweaks, most likely to suit Bahrain's track characteristics.

But Ferrari is finally showing its hand, meaning that Mercedes has much more performance to find.

Ferrari hits the brakes

Bahrain wasn't quite the happy hunting ground that Ferrari had envisaged after leading all of the timed sessions up to the race, but the team underlined its credentials with plenty of pace in hand over the Mercedes drivers.

It seems that Ferrari has found a novel solution to develop a little extra grip, enabling the SF90 to be more planted than its silver rival.

Ultimately, the team looks to have sidestepped the banning of the front blown axle, and has found a way of cleaning up the turbulence produced from the centre of the wheel with a novel approach to the upright design.

The outboard portions of the hub have an element around the hub, which channels airflow from the brake ducts outside.

This pushes some of the disturbed air from the centre of the rotating wheel outside, minimising its contribution to the turbulence from the tyre.