PlatinumZealot wrote: ↑28 Apr 2022, 18:51
continuum16 wrote: ↑28 Apr 2022, 17:11
PlatinumZealot wrote: ↑28 Apr 2022, 14:16
Zero side pods already ruled out by George Russell. He said they had porpoising on the shakedown lap when they had the conventional side pods.
I'd be interesting to know what, if any, differences there are in the bouncing characteristics between the original and current spec. The fact that the level of bouncing seems to be different for every track (Imola was probably the worst so far with lifting on the straights, or at least was not any improvement on previous races) to me seems to indicate that Mercedes either does not know how to reduce the bouncing across a range of setups, or (probably closer to the truth) they know but their current hardware (be it suspension/aero/etc.) prevents them from doing so.
Every car has bouncing to some extent, the most limiting factor is arguably how early does it happen? 240 kph? 280kph? It is well known that a main component as to why Ferrari is able to cope with it is because it happens at a relatively high speed.
Perhaps the bouncing is onset at a higher speed with the original configuration, but the track to track variation means they can probably not be sure if it is down to the inherent car characteristics or the track/setup. Barcelona will be the real test, and Mercedes themselves have stated that they will be looking at the differences between the current car and the one from testing. Absolute worst case scenario for the team would be a 2019-Haas like reversion to the original spec. I'm sure that would probably be the nuclear option, and would require them to see that the original car from testing would be
much better. Chances of this happening are likely very low, albeit non-zero.
The only way the side pod can influence bouncing is how it influences the pressure at the entrance, side and rear of the floor right, whether through the air dam at the front, the outwash at the sides the downwash and wake at the back.
The resepctive differences of these between the different type of side pod are relatively small or even negligble when you compare the effect of flow structures around like sealing vortices, the strakes, and the shape of the floor itself.
It's like someone telling you that if you use a bigger umbrella you wont get wet in a hurricane basically. Which is just incorrect because the magnitude of the sheltering is nothing compared to the amount of rain and force of wind.
I am not an aero guy but the magnitudes of the different effects (side pod wake and the floor devices) are orders different in size to aero effecta that happen near the floor (if the area underneath the floor if what we are focusing on).
So in my own deduction I will say the side pod hypothesis is not it. I expect Mercedes to have a new floor in Miami maybe some front wing tweaks. I would be fun to be proven wrong though.
I agree the sidepods are probably not the fundamental problem, they are just the most visually striking part of the revised version of the car that appeared in Bahrain. They also brought a number of other changes, including a completely revised floor and front wing (remember the original "lasagna" floor, for example). Because the difference in airflow characteristics between the two packages is strong, it's probably not as simple as being able to "mix and match" components. I still think we will only know in Spain whether things are trending in the right direction, competitively at least.
"You can't argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"
- Mark Twain
