Actually, the new engine will be used only in qualifying and race, while the Friday practice sessions will be handled with the unit he used in the Malaysian race. The reason for the switch, as confirmed by the Brazilian driver himself, was that his car tackled the last few laps of the Malaysian GP with only a little amount of fuel, which can cause some reliability issues in the future.
“That is not good for the engine, so we will use it (the Sepang engine) only in free practice in Friday,” Senna was quoted by Brazil's Globo.
An additional feature that he'll use in China is a multi-compartment fuel tank, something that his teammate Karun Chandhok has already run with in Sepang. This will allegedly improve the F110's weight distribution on the track. Other than that, however, the car will not debut any notable aerodynamic upgrades, as confirmed by Senna.
“We will have no developments, or anything that can substantially improve our pace,” said a quite frustrated Senna prior to the race in Shanghai. “For now, we can only tinker with some things, such as the weight distribution.”
The lack of aerodynamic developments probably comes as a logical consequence of Dallara's poor chassis provided to the Spanish team, as argued in recent weeks by both technical director Geoff Willis and business affairs boss Manfredi Ravetto. According to those two, the car is not prone to many aerodynamic developments for the future.
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