Nyck de Vries started at FP2 in Melbourne with a revised floor and diffuser kit, while Yuki Tsunoda had to revert to the original version after damaging his new parts in a close-up at FP1.

The Tsunoda switch inadvertently led the Italian team to conduct an unscheduled back-to-back comparison of the two specifications over the weekend, with the consensus that the new floor performed as expected.

“It addresses most of the issues we think there might be weaknesses,” Egginton said.

“When we developed the car over the winter, we set ourselves goals for development and other aspects. We achieved some of them, but not others.

“This update sort of fixes that. We’ve been working on the package before the test drive. It’s really just delivering all the benefits we need in the areas that we’ve proven we have to work on.

“So that’s the first step, there’s still a lot to do. But it’s being delivered in areas where we think we have to make the most gains to get closer to our competitors, and we’re pretty happy with that.”

Egginton made it clear that the purpose of the first upgrade was to address weaknesses in corner-entry stability, allowing drivers to push harder.

Nyck de Vries, AlphaTauri AT04

Photography: Red Bull Content Pool

“Obviously, low-speed aero performance is the goal of every team,” he noted. “That was one of the goals we didn’t fully nail down in pre-season. The update we’re bringing now, among other things, aims to improve low-speed entry stability.

“We’re looking to make the car more stable entering corners at low speeds. That way the driver can push harder late into the corner. And the performance will come from that.”

Development is currently focused on finding downforce and improving stability at the higher rear ride height.

“We had no doubts about what we wanted to do,” Eckington said. “In a very basic sense, we want to improve rear loading at high rear ride heights. Currently the load drop at these ride heights is causing our instability.

“If we improve the rear loading on the entry phase, if you have more rear loading, you have more stability. We’re trying to bring that further into the corners so drivers can enter later Vertex works harder.”

Expanding on the thinking behind the original upgrade, he said: “The changes we’ve made to the radian of the floor fence and trying to control the strength and position of the floor vortex and diffuser expansion and reduce tire wake losses are all part of that.

“At the end of the day, in very simple terms, we want to carry more load in the corners so the driver can push harder.

“It also gives us a balance advantage, if we can maintain more aerodynamic balance in the corners, with high stability, really. So it’s as simple as that.

“The floor is a big device that has the most power to make it happen, which is why it’s the first five or six steps in floor development this year.”