The latest F1 upgrades spotted in Monaco

And, while it is still early in the weekend, Valtteri Bottas’ eighth place slot in FP2 has at least offered an early indication that its changes could have shifted it up a gear in the ultra-tight midfield battle.

The revisions are quite extensive, as there’s also some high downforce, circuit specific updates that are loaded on to the car to deal with the exacting demands of the Monte Carlo street circuit.

The changes that have been made are all at the rear, with the engine cover, floor body and floor edge all optimised to improve flow conditions, while also providing an uptick in cooling performance.

Alfa Romeo C43 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The latter has also been helped by the introduction of a new cooling panel, which sits on the engine cover’s shoulder and offers the maximum heat rejection of those available within its suite of options.

Meanwhile, the rear suspension fairings have been modified to work in conjunction with a new rear brake duct fence (red arrow, old specification inset below).

Alfa Romeo C43 rear wing and rear brake duct comparison

Photo by: Uncredited

As expected, there’s also a higher downforce rear and beam wing variant for Monaco, too. While it does share commonality with the other choices, it is clear how much deeper and steeper the mainplane and upper flap are in this specification.

The rear wing mounting pylons have also been redesigned, with a larger gap introduced between the swan-neck and the leading edge of the mainplane, while their overall height has also been increased.

This is paired with a more bulbous DRS pod and actuator arrangement when compared with the one used in recent races.

Metal inserts have also been added to the rear quarter endplate cutout, which again differs from the style used in recent races, while the flap edge and pivots have been reinforced.

The cancellation of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix has meant that a lot of upgrades originally planned for that round have been rolled over to Monaco, so there is quite a lot on display.

Aston Martin opted to stagger the introduction of the new parts it had planned to debut at Imola with the ones most suited to the demands of Monaco now on display.

Aston Martin AMR23 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The remainder of the parts not used here will be carried over to the Spanish GP, with a revised outer front wing layout a likely candidate for this, given how the team described some of it updates in the car presentation document ahead of the event.

For this weekend, the AMR23’s upper wishbone fairing has been modified and now features a twisted profile across its span in order to improve flow downstream.

The lower front brake duct deflector has also been repositioned within the bounds of the legality box, a feature that will likely bear more fruit once the aforementioned front wing changes take place in Spain.

Aston Martin AMR23 rear brake detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Meanwhile, at the rear of the car, the suspension fairings have been fettled to alter their incidence, and guide vanes have been added to the inner drum on the rear brake assembly to help divert the airflow as it makes its way across and around the void between the two surfaces.

The upper transitional tip section of the rear wing endplate has also been angled on top of the mainplane section, rather than sitting parallel with it.

Alpine has almost simultaneously stumbled upon this approach too and it has enabled it to pancake the upper tip section of the rear wing and alter how it and the rear quarter cutout will interact with one another.

Alpine A523 technical detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Alpine has also made extensive changes to its sidepod architecture for Monaco, with the team that originally pioneered the water slide-style gulley now taking it to a more extreme level after seeing what Aston Martin has done with the idea.

The A523’s sidepods are now wider and taller to enable the team to incorporate the deeper valley section.

This should not only help improve the airflow’s passage down over the assembly to the rear of the car and the coke bottle region, but also help with flow down the car’s flank and over the floor, which has also been modified to suit.