scarbs wrote: ↑29 Dec 2022, 19:47
They'll adopt a water/air intercooler, losing the big sidepod mounted intercoolers. This should open up some opportunities to repackage the very long radiator set up from last year.
So this is an info, not just speculation?
That's the first obvious step IMO: To use the Merc water-air interccoler that was designed for that compressor, and is used by every other Mercedes team, instead of those air-air ones and their 20 miles-long pipes.
Their cockpit is very rearwards like RB, so MCL could take advantage of this in 2023 and copy the other RB tricks to extract more performance from that design choice.
They could push the now smaller cooling package backwards an put it in a more normal position, and move the lower side impact structures from the sidepods to inside the floor to get bigger sidepod front undercuts.
Their 2022 sidepods were very busy and did host most of the systems, while their splitter/bib area was empty because it was an ultra slim splitter.
In 2023 it could be the other way around if they follow RB.
I wonder if they'll keep the same monocoque design. They could do that to retain the low fuel tank and low CoG. I dont think they need to dig the sides of the tub for the repositionned cooling. Their packaging would be similar to Ferrari.