However, with the fight in the F1 pack so intense this year, everyone equally knows that small gains can make a big difference in the pecking order.
That is why several outfits did take some new parts to Shanghai, with Alpine and Haas bringing pretty extensive updates, while Mercedes, Williams and RB all made smaller tweaks to their cars.
With just one free practice session at the teams' disposal, all of the changes seen in China needed to work practically out of the box, even if new parc ferme rules did allow for some tweaking of settings between the sprint and qualifying.
The Mercedes, Williams and RB trio all made changes to a similar area on their cars, as they either adjusted or added to their halo fairings, or in RB’s case, adjusted the shape of the headrest.
These alterations won’t yield a significant performance benefit but do help tidy up any inefficiencies that might have been present previously.
Source: Autosport