Brake cooling tweaks headline a thin list of upgrades brought to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix .
The Baku City Circuit’s long straights in the first and third sectors lead to some of the biggest braking zones on the calendar. Drivers wash off 130 mph – from 205 mph to 75 mph – into the first turn. Drivers experience 5g at both Turn 1 and Turn 3.
Ferrari will tackle the high braking demands with a bigger front brake duct exit made specifically for this circuit to improve brake cooling.
Charles Leclerc has claimed the last four Baku pole positions in succession for Ferrari as well as the sprint pole in 2023, though the Monegasque has yet to win a race at this track in any format.
Racing Bulls has also brought circuit-specific brake upgrades this weekend, modifying brake ducts at the front and rear of the car to “increase cooling flow … to suit the requirements of the circuit.”
Red Bull Racing will apply an upgrade unrelated to the specific demands of the track, bringing a reprofiled inboard assembly for the RB21’s rear wing. The team has described it as a “mild” upgrade that will boost downforce without harming the stability of the airflow at the rear of the car.
Red Bull Racing will be relying on the floor upgrades it brought to Monza – where Max Verstappen dominated the race – to help improve its performance in Baku. The team was uncompetitive at both rounds last year, qualifying half a second off the pace in the 2024 edition of the Azerbaijan race. Verstappen finished fifth, though Sergio Perez could have finished on the podium were it not for a late crash with Carlos Sainz.
Mercedes has also brought a revised front wing featuring front wing flaps with a shorter chord – the distance between the leading and trailing edges. The team says the change will reduce downforce at the modified parts of the front wing in a bid to better balance the car when it’s equipped with a low-downforce rear wing.
Despite the twisty middle sector of the Baku track, teams generally set up their cars for low downforce given the time available to be gained down the long flat-out blast between Turn 16 and the first braking zone at Turn 1.
McLaren, Aston Martin, Alpine, Haas, Williams and Sauber did not declare any new components for this weekend’s race, with all teams now heavily focused on their 2026 cars.
