carisi2k wrote: ↑14 Feb 2023, 22:29
Venturiation wrote: ↑13 Feb 2023, 15:54
So there is alot of downsides in the zeopods design but what did mercedes engineers find in it that made them want it?
Remember that this is a team of 100+ engineers working on this and each one has tought of the downsides that we are talking about
but there has to be a reason that they want to keep it
Mercedes said that they explored the other teams design ( ferrari and redbull) and binotto said the same about merc but it was hard to make it work
They are still lost as far as I am concerned. I still don't think they really know why there car did what it did last year. I'm not talking just about the porpoising but the aerodynamic instability that resulted in the crashes at Austria and there scary rides at Baku. I don't think they know how to fix that problem or more specifically they are following a path that is a lie in the small pod. They are seeing something in there tools that isn't there in reality.
Every other car has a proper sidepod including Williams who also tried a smallish sidepod and this should speak volumes as to why Mercedes is going to struggle again this year.
Or maybe they're just chasing that silver bullet, if you follow in others footsteps you'll never be in front. And all the other teams have chosen to go the way red bull or Ferrari did, but to be in front of them, you need to perfect their concepts better than they do themselves, and that's very difficult.
So I guess Mercedes are chasing the other way to make a fast car, and if they can perfect their own concept, maybe they can beat everyone else. And they have to see something in their simulations that make it worth chasing.
Last year their concept was based on running the car as low as possible, but they couldn't without porpoising so they had to compromise too much. Maybe this year, with the raised floor edges, they can run low enough to get their concept working without porpoising.