The Athletic.

The races are, and with Formula One heading back to Barcelona, that means it's upgrade time,

with what's so far been a tentative development war set to burst into life.

But what could it mean for the balance

of power between Red Bull and Ferrari and how might it impact F1's midfield pack? I'm Ed Straw and

joining me to answer those questions and many more are Mark Hughes and Gary Anderson. Mark, are you

looking forward to getting to Barcelona and maybe seeing a few more of those upgrades we've been waiting for?

Yeah, indeed. It's a slow development war this one because of the cost cap.

But that's brought its own intrigues, and we're seeing quite an interesting pattern develop,

especially between the two lead cars.

How about you, Gary? It's actually been quite slow so far this season.

We haven't had as many bits and pieces to talk about as perhaps we were expecting,

but are you hoping the floodgates will now open?

Well, I think, yeah, the regulations are still in their infancy as such.

So I think it's taking a bit of time for the teams to understand them

because the car's working quite different with the majority of the downforce now produced by the underfloor and not so much

of it by the front wing or the rear wing. So it isn't, you know, it isn't just one of these cases

of jumping at the different wing assemblies to get better flow and get more downforce out

the front wing or rear wing it's about trying to

sort of understand the whole package and the underfloor is a big old component and obviously

because of portmasing it's thrown about confusion into the development direction that's taking

the team's about time to recognize what makes it come and go because if you haven't got it it it's

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