Ferrari to try new floor again as Red Bull copies idea

Ferrari has not been convinced by the new floor idea so far, having abandoned it after practice in both Japan and America, but its decision at both races was influenced by poor weather conditions in practice leading to a lack of useful running.

Although rolling back on its updates helped Ferrari deliver victory in Austin last weekend, the team still wants to understand more about the new floor idea.

It has fitted the upgrade again to Kimi Raikkonen's car for Friday practice in Mexico so it can do a proper back-to-back with the old floor that Sebastian Vettel will run.

The floor features a long slot at the rear in front of the rear tyre, and it was modified last weekend with a series of three fins aimed at both energising the airflow and diverting debris away from the diffuser area.

Ferrari SF71H floor detail

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

Speaking ahead of the Mexico race, Vettel said it was important the team got to the bottom of why recent updates had not delivers all that had been hoped.

“It is important that we are starting to understand what didn’t work or was not as good as before,” he said. “I think it was important to go a step back to understand some things. But the main thing is we keep moving forward.

“The last couple of days have been quite important, the last weeks also, and we have started to understand a bit more, so we try to move forward.”

Rival Red Bull has now also copied the Ferrari idea by adding extra fins to the floor of its RB14, as it plans to evaluate the development in Friday practice.

Red Bull has also added a Gurney flap to the back edge of the sidepod in a bid for extra downforce.