They have utilised a feature that connects the rear wing endplate and upper flap’s tip section differently in a bid to help manipulate airflow in this area of the car.
It is the result of teams clearly poking and prodding to try to reverse the impact of changes made by the FIA to reduce wake turbulence created by cars, which then improves their ability to follow one another more closely.
The FIA wanted to prevent, or at least reduce, some of the aerodynamic trickery that had ensued during the last few regulatory eras.
The reason being is that the vortex shed from this region is particularly potent, and teams had spent a huge amount of resources on tailoring its performance to both reduce drag and increase downforce.
But knowing how much performance can be leveraged from this region of the rear wing, and the knock-on effect that can have on other aspects of its design, the teams were never going to sit idly by and leave that lap time on the table.
This has resulted in numerous variations in terms of the design of the endplate, the tip section and the flap juncture, with the latest interpretation leading to the separation of the tip section from the endplate, with a metal support placed inboard of the outer surface curvature instead.
The idea first emerged at the Monaco Grand Prix, when it appeared simultaneously on the Alpine A523 and Aston Martin AMR23 - although both teams did it in a slightly different way.
In fact, you could argue that there are already two diverging development branches from the tree, with Aston Martin having created one branch that Mercedes has followed, whilst Alpine created another that AlphaTauri has followed.
In the case of Aston Martin and Mercedes, the approach still relies on a metal insert but it sits on the endplate’s shoulder and still creates more of a round section for the lower half of the tip section, whilst the upper half flares out and allows a larger rear cutout.
By comparison, the approach taken by Alpine and now AlphaTauri has the metal support sat further inboard and allows the tip section to become a flatter, horizontal extension of the upper flap. This not only increases the size of the rear cutout but also introduces another shedding surface into the mix too.
Source: Autosport