Why F1 2025's development curve isn't over... yet

Most, if not all, Formula 1 teams are currently observing their summer shutdowns - and if they're not in it, then they've just come out of the mandatory August hibernation. To ensure those operating at the coalface of manufacturing and design enjoy some respite, the FIA has enforced a 14-day period where no development work or simulator sessions can take place.

As such, the engineering and manufacturing personnel must set their out-of-office messages, while the media, marketing, and non-engineering work can continue - just as long as a press officer isn't moonlighting as a vehicle dynamicist, let's say.

Once the post-hibernation torpor disseminates into the atmosphere thanks to the ponderous gurgles of the coffee machine, the other (and, versus anything that dispenses espresso, considerably less important) machinery can be fired up and pressed into action. At this point you'd suspect that most, if not all, of the processing power will be expended on the continued development of next year's all-new cars.

For many of the teams, that will be somewhat true. We're well into the fourth aerodynamic testing period of the season (10 weeks, owing to the shutdown) and, with just two periods remaining after that, there's limited time and resources to perfect the aero work needed to come out swinging in 2026. It hardly seems to be advisable to take up too much of that with a car generation that will soon be obsolete. The ground-effect floors will, for the most part, be dispensed with again; the main floor pan will be flat, and there will be a remnant of the current designs in the overall shape of the diffuser, but there's little else that's similar with the underbody.

Actually, it's hard to think of anything that does carry over - the time to develop an all-new car is restricted, and even more so if you're at the top end of the field. And, with one's cynical hat on, it might actually be of benefit to stop developing if you're at the bottom (and, indeed, Alpine very much has) to collect that sweet wind tunnel time.

But there's also reason to carry on bringing new parts in 2025. First, it's important to delineate between active development and simply trickling out what's already been sitting in the pipeline. There will be designs that have been fully tested through simulation tools and in the wind tunnel that sit in the ecosystem somewhere in the teams' hard drives, but are held onto to perhaps divert resources to more pressing matters.

If a team feels that the updates on the backburner are worth the punt, then it might feel justified in bringing them to the real world. Remember: these things cost money to develop and money to build; in a cost-cap era, sunk cost fallacies are generally avoided in F1 and teams won't hesitate to abandon development of projects that don't present the desired initial numbers in the simulator tools.

Haas is planning an updated floor for the autumn

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

Most teams will still have small bits and pieces to add to the cars, although few have been forthcoming about further updates. We know that Haas, assuming it has the free resource and promise in the engineers' sums, is planning its last floor update package for its VF-25 for the United States Grand Prix.

"If we manage to make something which is good enough to justify the spend we will do one more upgrade this season. So we are still working, we're finalising that at the moment," said Haas' deputy chief designer Jonathan Heal over the Hungary weekend. "Traditionally we have tried to bring a package for the last part of the season, so breaking it up into races is where it fits in our development cycles. We brought one in race 12 [Silverstone], so race 19 is another seven races, so that's our development for big packages of floors through this year."

There's another bonus to be had from continuing development, one that Sauber had been keen to exploit through 2025. Having been effectively stuck in a holding pattern at the start of 2024, as Sauber's former ownership was at an impasse with Audi (why invest in a team you won't own later down the line?). Audi then took 100% control, but was reluctant to put resource into anything that was not 2026-focused until Mattia Binotto came in as COO and CTO. The former Ferrari team principal argued that, if the team was not investing in development during the interregnum before 2026, it could not keep its processes and its simulation tools calibrated correctly.

There are external penalties for going over budget, but internal penalties down the line if you've not spent the whole yearly allowance...

"Don't forget that as we develop the car, a very important thing is that you develop the tools as well, and the tools will always help you develop in the next car," performance director Stefano Sordo noted in Japan this year, hence the team's forward momentum over 2025.

This all being said, it would be wholly surprising at this stage if a team had a 2025 car still in the wind tunnel. Any updates coming through the teams' respective systems will have been any residual parts left from earlier development phases, and the changing picture with cost caps may well have freed up the development to put them into production.

Teams will keep budget aside for any contingency payments, particularly for anything like repairs in case one of the drivers has a whopping great shunt that turns bodywork into shards of carbon fibre confetti. If those estimated crashes in the first half of the season do not emerge, then the team can look at reintegrating those ring-fenced contingencies into the development or production budget. That's when you press those updates into service; there are external penalties for going over budget, but internal penalties later down the line if you've not spent the whole yearly allowance...

Although the 2025 upgrade cycle is winding down, it's not quite over yet. There's also Monza to consider as teams bring bespoke low-drag parts to account for strong straightline speed, although much of this might be carry-over to ensure minimum outlay on wings that will likely be used once. There's still constructors' placings to consider; one team might prefer the added simulation time, another might prefer the extra $8-9million received for each place in the teams' standings.

And, if there's a few teams all within a tenth per lap, recycling that forgotten-about floor idea might not be such a bad way to get the upper hand.

Sauber understands that developing tools and processes is part of the game

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images