A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
So Mercedes actually retained their extremely undercut monocoque flancs that helped them make the infamous 2022 'zero-pods'... interesting..
+1 Interesting. Just goes to show how intentionally oversized the sidepods are in this formula. Merc still get the advantage of keeping the HX mass closer to center with those monocoque undercuts, while inflating the sidepods out to the more advantageous areas.
So Mercedes actually retained their extremely undercut monocoque flancs that helped them make the infamous 2022 'zero-pods'... interesting..
.. hence the huge sidepod undercuts (a different kind of 'zeropods') and the high and massive shoulders behind the driver/halo, (the fuel tank gets squeezed upward)...
I fail to see either the relevance or the fascination in this "zero" labelled topic.
A failed concept, that even the originators failed to understand in interaction with it. Littered with "fail" in every sense of the word
Such that they sacked the designer, termination of his career there, caused the team to be significantly away from any of their usual accomplishments, the performance trajectory prior to this abomination, going down in F1 record as most spectacular drop in this criteria.
Ultimately to cause the loss of their star driver/asset, also the win bonuses curtailed and leading to toxic atmosphere within team ranks (reportedly) and years of trying to get back to the front in competitive terms.
This team don't make mistakes but they did here.
Where's the fascination in such a poor performance ? What's the point in reference to it as some sort of success ?
Can someone please explain in simple language, what is the 'benefit' of 'zero'/'nil' sidepods actually is ? (there has to be something, otherwise mercedes woudn't have gone for such a thing). If the answer is 'drag advantage'/'frontal area', then what about keeping front wheel wake from squeezing into the coke bottle area ? OR is it a case of exposing as much top-floor area, to increase dowforce from the floor ?
Does the 2026 reg allow 'bargeboards' , like older regs ?
Can someone please explain in simple language, what is the 'benefit' of 'zero'/'nil' sidepods actually is ? (there has to be something, otherwise mercedes woudn't have gone for such a thing). If the answer is 'drag advantage'/'frontal area', then what about keeping front wheel wake from squeezing into the coke bottle area ? OR is it a case of exposing as much top-floor area, to increase dowforce from the floor ?
Does the 2026 reg allow 'bargeboards' , like older regs ?
In my opinion, I think it's both in terms of how the wake is managed, the rear tyres won't get nearly as hot vs the bigger sidepods. And how much downforce it produces. I can only imagine had Mercedes stuck with the sidepod concept for the W16, I'm really confident they wouldn't have a lot of tyre temp issues. Plus, this concept could also be carried over into next year.
But it's my small brain opinion, not an expert on this.
A preface may be of use here :- technical performance is absolutely and brutally functional, ultimately coming down to "did it work or not" with no place for sentiment, team/personell allegiance etc.
If this is to be discussed, then the sentiment etc has to be removed, else there's no point in spending the time to construct a technical debate that the aim of another is to dismantle on this basis.
Understanding, searching questions and intelligent contribution is the factual approach, whether someone likes it or not.
Onto zero discussion.
It was the product of the team thinking they had seen a small "pass through" in the rules by complying with them in regard to the front end of sidepod structure and how it crosses notional restriction boxes etc, also by framing the crash protection pillars in such a way to facilitate.
What were they looking for ? Any reduction in frontal cross section indicates gain in drag, that seems a very plausible and primary aim. The benefit also clear in power usage etc.
To make this work, it still has to operate within a tightly confined set of rules that dictate the rest of the aero concept, floor, diffuser, front & rear wing, " barge board" etc, etc.
The net effect of those convention may and likely will be some of the limitations in adaption of the more radical approach in that sidepod architecture.
Any design that brings/promote an instability in response, like this whole concept did (horrendous bouncing etc) is a huge concern that can completely obliterate the notional /perceived advantage that SEEM to be available in early concept modelling.
This team threw absolutely everything at solving it, and failed. They have more resources than anyone commenting on here in all reasonable evaluation. That's absolutely and completely factual, and they themselves accepted that.
Reasonance, oscillation, cadence, etc etc are very destructive in many concept unless that's the aim of them. Solving problems like this in restricted design parameters (all teams know and understand before they start, this limited scope) also noting from teams in general, that there's no real modelling and testing for this area with the tools they had in 2022 development, and likely now too.
Sophistication is often projected to outsiders of F1 teams, but this really is truly into experience (you know who) and far more "suck it and see" type development. People in these teams are still getting it wrong even now.
My origins lay deep down inside R&D research, machine rooms providing models, test equipment into wind tunnel research. Its apparent from spending time in that environment, right at the balance point of design crystallisation from projected attribute to going into physical testing, that there's many many failures. Theres plenty of stories about "if only they could get that to work" but they couldn't, and it sits there a mark of not fully understanding what even is the cause of failure.
Without understanding the cause, there will likely be no feasible solution. That seems to be the case here.
Whether anyone else (someone in another team) has seen something in this failure, to make use of that, we'll not know until we see that. It’s likely that the next rules set has closed that little window anyway.
Back to W16 and this appears to be their best iteration yet. I'm not talking about WCC, wins, points etc, but the ability to operate it in what is a very tightly bunched set of other chassis as this era closes. It's very near, but crucially lacks against its obvious comparator the McL with same PU.
But even this they still don't understand why the peaks and troughs are evident. It sometimes jumps into clear superiority just for a race, but then back to within the front running pack again at next.
"I think it's both in terms of how the wake is managed, the rear tyres won't get nearly as hot vs the bigger sidepods"
Broadly, I don't see any substantiated evidence to believe that's the case.
If of interest, have a look over on McL team thread as Venky and I were looking through the method by which the tyre, particularly the rear, performs. I've used the comparison to W16 there, and the interaction various aspects play to optimise tyre performance.
but they did here. 
