For Monaco, that has led to the introduction of an interesting serrated diffuser concept that was tried for the first time in Thursday practice.

The design, which only appeared on Max Verstappen’s car during FP1, features a revised outer section, whereby a serrated edge has been applied to the two innermost Gurney-like extensions that run around the periphery of the diffuser.

Meanwhile, Sergio Perez, running the standard configuration, would give Red Bull plenty of data in order to quantify any uplift in performance.

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Red Bull Racing RB16B diffuser comparison

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The change had been made obvious by the flow-vis paint that had been sprayed on the diffuser and rear wing in order that the team might get confirmation that the airflow was behaving as anticipated. And, with Monaco being somewhat of an outlier in terms of downforce levels, it means that the airflow might need to be worked a little bit harder to achieve the same results.

The serrations look like they create smaller vortical flow structures that might otherwise create issues at higher speeds.

Serrated surfaces are not a new playground for F1 though, with Mercedes making use of them on numerous occasions in recent years, whilst the mid 2000’s proved fruitful for them from a design perspective too.

Here we look at previous serrated ideas...

Mercedes AMG F1 W10 serrated rear wing

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The Mercedes W10 with a serrated trailing edge on the mainplane of its rear wing, and also notice the crescent shaped flap below the crash structure too.