Mercedes W14

[F1Krof]

With the disclaimer this could just be a fake launch floor, I find the lingering presence of the clipped floor "foot" a bit concerning.

That was introduced as a trial item at Spa last year and consequently kept but it always felt like a bit of a move of desperation to me, to limit some of the floor contact with the track around the diffuser. I don't think any other team runs it.

I believe so too. I think they're not showing the full extent of the car just yet.

[F1NAC]

Wow this is really a cool development. I guess we won't have 10 cars looking the same as last year.. merc making big change

The floor is nowhere near as exposed as last year. Almost filling it up now

Zeropods are dead. Long live weird pods

it is still zeropod. Reshaped, but same philosohpy.

Sorry, but that isn't "Zeropod" any more, not at all. Its concept and philosophy thats SIMILAR in that it tries to keep some of its benefits without having the massive disasvantages. But it changed so much that its not at all a Zeropod concept anymore.

Well to me sidepods from last year weren't infact zeropods either if we speak from physical prospect.. They were there. It's not like they were gone for good. That would mean chasis tube without side openings at all.

But since everyone call that zeropods, I think it is normal to call these at least zeropods 2.0 , because it is same concept as last year, no? just evolution based on last year.

[Henri]

about rear suspension, don't know if it's true

Mayb the w12 suspension trick is back

[Venturiation]

about rear suspension, don't know if it's true

Mayb the w12 suspension trick is back

redbull had it in 2022 so if merc manages to get it it's good

[atanatizante]

Had I`m not wrong they changed the positions from both the leading SIS wing (upwards red arrows) and the Venturi leading inlets tunnels (downwards red arrows) may be for improving the CoG and/or CoP. You have to take the reference of the halo position and the downwash upper body front-leg suspension in order to spot the difference ...


In addition to that, it seems that these modifications are independent of the car wheelbase which could be misleading in these cars' comparison photos...

[georgekyr]

Does all this black tells us that they needed as light a car as possible? I like it, but still no indication of where they stand weight-wise.

[organic]

Does all this black tells us that they needed as light a car as possible? I like it, but still no indication of where they stand weight-wise.

Yes. That's why every team is incorporating lots of exposed cf in their designs. McLaren, Haas, Alfa etc

[organic]

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... /10432497/

Mercedes plans to change its sidepod concept early in the new Formula 1 season, team boss Toto Wolff has revealed.

with Mercedes now alone in its sidepod design, as most rivals have copied Red Bull’s idea, it has emerged that it too is also readying a different solution.

Speaking at the launch, Wolff said that, while the team did not believe the sidepods were critical to car performance, revisions were in the pipeline.

Throughout last season we have analysed it back and forth, whether it was right or not,” he said. “Obviously you can see the sidepods are very different to any other car.

“But we believe that this is not a performance-relative part. Obviously, there is no such thing as a holy cow here, and we are looking at everything.

“On the sidepods, this is the first iteration and, when we're going through the first few races, that's going to change a little bit.”

So this is definitely an A spec. The sidepods will probably change significantly. I'm expecting a downwashing ramp frankly, considering the shoulder of their engine cover.

And about reflecting on 2022:

While teams have traditionally brought aggressive upgrades to the tests and the first race, Wolff said for this year the team’s launch specification was very close to how it will be for the season opener in Bahrain.

Last year, we learned a tough lesson,” he explained. “We knew that we are going to bring an upgrade package for test number two, and that was worth one and a half seconds.

“Then, looking at the first test, we were thinking that's not really relevant because that's not going to be the car. Then we put it [the upgrade] on the track, and it wasn't performing at all as we expected.

“So this year, we went the other way around. And what you've seen is, for a large part, the car that we are going to race, also that we're going to test.

“It's fundamentally important to understand the platform and how the car behaves, rather than keeping some bits in the background that may add a tenth of two on pure aero performance.”

[georgekyr]

Does all this black tells us that they needed as light a car as possible? I like it, but still no indication of where they stand weight-wise.

Yes. That's why every team is incorporating lots of exposed cf in their designs. McLaren, Haas, Alfa etc

If we take what Beat Zehnder said last year it could be up to 6 kg in total to fully paint a car...

[Henk_v]

Looking at all (new) cars, most cars have a clear aerodynamic household regarding to powerful airflows and lossy airflows.

Sidepod inlets create lossy air around the edges spilling over. All teams now have narrow wide inlets. This minimises losse on the sides of the sidepods. A lot of teams followed the RB route and extended the lower lip, forcing the losses to go over the top of the sidepod, keeping the most powerfull air over the floor edge and taking advantage of the lossy air over the top to place cooling exits.

I believe this is also why the cannon exits are popular. Instead of trying to spend your bodywork shape to aim the losses between the beam wing and the rear wing (prone to be messed up by sidewind, cornering etc.), expell the lossy air as close to the target as possible.

Before '22, lossy air could be cleaned up or manipulated to smash against the rear wheel by all sorts of aero devices. Now high power air is limited and needs to be savoured.

A vertical inlet is a disaster in that sense. All sorts of lossy stuff is expelled over a great length on the side of the sidepod and there is little that can be done to clean it up, use it for other lossy things etc.

I believe that is the fatal flaw in the zeropod concept. Sidepod inlet losses are mixed with the floor edge vortices and ingested by the beam wing/diffuser. I think merc miscalculated how much there was to gain from sperting powerful airstreams from lossy airstreams.

[Vaexa]

The sidepod A-spec story lends a bit of credence to the delay rumours leading up to the launch.

With regards to rear suspension I don't think it was ever proven that the RB18 had a trick rear suspension, or that it was more than just a low drag car. As I understand it, trick suspensions have been difficult if not impossible to implement in these regulations in any case.

[organic]

The sidepod A-spec story lends a bit of credence to the delay rumours leading up to the launch.

With regards to rear suspension I don't think it was ever proven that the RB18 had a trick rear suspension, or that it was more than just a low drag car. As I understand it, trick suspensions have been difficult if not impossible to implement in these regulations in any case.

Very good point. Probably something in those delay rumours then

[Andi76]

what the w13 had will and always be the zeropods idea

They've ditched zeropods but developed the good ideas behind it to this new approach with an elongated but low sidepod and cannon exits.

Let's just call it the halfpod and be done with this argument.

Clearly they have slightly more volume overall than last season, but still way less than the other teams.

Some are calling it not zeropods to have the gotcha the zeropods was a failure argument
Let's stay on topic and just talk technical

from above you can see the melted zeropods

I don't think people say they are not Zeropods to say that the Zeropods failed, because usually these people don't care anymore and it's a fact for them (even if I personally think that "failed" is quite inappropriate, because even if it certainly had its drawbacks or problems, they were the third fastest car, whats not a "failure"). It's more likely that some want to keep calling them Zeropods because last year they insisted that it was not a failure, despite all the problems and two obviously better concepts. The fact is that the sidepods have become bigger compared to last year, and Mercedes has neither dropped the concept, nor it really dropped it completely. It has entered into a compromise solution that is quite original and fortunately not a copy of Ferrari or Red Bull. So at least there are still three concepts, besides 7 Ferrari/Red Bull hybrids.

[organic]

We probably won't have this debate for long since the sidepods will be different soon hopefully they don't swap to something standard, but from the cannon exits at the rear I am fearful

[214270]

Looks like it’s pretty much the same inlet volume front, different contour mid and wider out back (less expanse of floor) vs last year; very much the same concept.