These teams underwent the most upgrades, but did they work?

Throughout the season, the cars have changed a lot compared to the first race in Bahrain. In total, there have been a whopping 286 visible upgrades. That means upgrades to the aerodynamics, floor and weight of the car. Of course, there have also been many invisible upgrades, but under the guise of competition-sensitive information, no figures are known about those.

Overview of changes per team

• McLaren:   53
• Mercedes:   37
• Williams:   35
• Alpine:   31
• Aston Martin:   30
• Red Bull:   27
• Alfa Romeo:   24
• Ferrari:   19
• AlphaTauri:   16
• Haas:   14

McLaren tops the list of upgrades. The orange car has undergone a whopping 53 upgrades this season. The many changes have been compiled into four major packages, the first of which was implemented early in the season. That proved to be the right choice: in the first race, McLaren had to make do with places 14 and 15, but three races later Lando Norris was on the podium at Imola.

Still, the British racing stable cannot yet fully measure up to rival Alpine. Whereas the French achieved stable results throughout the season - apart from technical failures - McLaren's successes seem to depend mainly on the track. This was once again evident in Japan, where Norris struggled to get just one point from tenth place, while Alpine managed a handsome fourth and seventh place.

Interestingly, Red Bull and Ferrari have made relatively few upgrades. The two teams have been leading the rankings all season, but apparently saw no need to keep developing their cars significantly. The results also show that the teams apparently had the right design to hand since the beginning.

Overall standings seem to remain the same

Despite all the upgrades, it seems to have made fairly little difference in the overall standings. The differences have remained largely the same, which is also clearly reflected in the fragmentation of the rankings. Ferrari and Red Bull are fighting it out at the forefront, with Mercedes a little behind them. Alpine and McLaren battle for spot four, a good distance ahead of the bottom half of the grid, where Aston Martin is the only one showing significant improvements compared to the season start. Williams dangles hopelessly at the back and has to rely on bold strategies and unexpected situations on track to score some points. By and large, this is pretty much the same as it was in the first few races of the season.

The conclusion that can be drawn from this is that none of the changes were decisive. The small changes helped individual teams somewhat, but proved insufficient to really shake up the field.