Andi76 wrote: ↑02 Jul 2022, 06:48
I totally disagree with what you say about the sidepods. There is definetely a lot that suggests that these sidepods are a big reason for their problems.
There were three teams at the beginning of the season with "Micropods". Mercedes, Williams and McLaren. McLaren went away from that philosophy a few races ago. Now also Williams has left this path. They did not do that because these sidepods were advantageous and did not cause issues.
Next to the problems this design brings in relation to flexing of the floor(which was clearly proven by the addition of a second bracket in Canada)and its relation to porpoising, they obviously have realised in CFD and the windtunnel that these sidepods are not the way to go. Of course they must have a lot of disadvantages in terms of aerodynamics etc. otherwise they would not do such a huge change concept-wise.
With the bargeboards missing the front wheel wake hits the rear of the car, disturbing the airflow and also giving a drag penalty in comparison to the "big-sidepods" which are "pushing" the front-wheel wake away from the car, hitting the rear-tyres instead and reducing drag. Thats pretty obvious and was proven by CFD simulations in this forum. Even if some people here still doubt that, the performance and the problems of the cars were exactly what these CFD simulations suggested. In Mercedes case you also have the inlets going all the way down to the floor what takes away the possibility to create a lot of outwash and a pressurisation zone under the sidepod inlet. They try to compensate that with all these winglets and the massive wing they have in this area, but this also seems like a pretty draggy and less effective solution. Toto Wolfs comments in the first few races "we have to lose drag" and their problems regarding Topspeed were also exactly the problems to expect with CFD simulations like that. And Mercedes ongoing changes in that area support further supports this.
But anyway - at the end of the day all the teams now have gone in the opposite direction, leaving Mercedes the one and only team with these kind of sidepods. And that pretty much says everything. Especially in the era of the budget cap. Williams and McLaren would not have spent a lot of resources on changing the sidepods if they would not have been a source of their performance issues and the area they can improve the most. In the era of the budget cap, you do not change the sidepod-philosphy of your car completely if it is not the cause of any of your teams-issues.
McLaren and Williams are in a different position to Merc in that they are fighting for position and other teams are close to them.
Merc are in a 'notch' all to themselves and can afford the extra 'thinking time' to get the concept right, and have the knowledge to carry it over to later cars.
If they do get it right they (claim they are) getting a huge performance boost, so it is worth them persevering rather than taking a known path that is not guaranteed to give them an advantage, and will not carry over to later developments.
If they were under pressure from the likes of Alpine and Mclaren, they would probably already cut their losses and gone for the understood option.
While there is little to lose or gain they may as well learn what they can as this years title is probably out of sight anyway.
When arguing with a fool, be sure the other person is not doing the same thing.