Mercedes W14

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Aston Martin style waterslide sidepods were very short lived.

They are pretty much gone right?

I m pretty sure they are.

I was thinking how teams like Merc could get their undercut to be as big as the RB19s and thought that the waterside is taking up room that would allow that.

I dont think that the packaging required to generate undercut comparable to the rb19 is the tricky part. The launch spec Williams in '22, current McLaren, amr and zeropod Merc show that plenty of teams are capable of very slimline. I think other teams just aren't seeing the benefit in going directly towards the RB sidepod solution

What sidepod solution you go for is dependent on how you're working the floor since it's clear there's a large impact from sidepod shape on extracting floor performance. And I don't think anyone is seeing performance gains from rb's style of sidepods in the tunnel because the floors are being worked differently. We've seen comments from lots of teams including Merc saying that they don't see huge gains from what RB is doing in terms of sidepod/engine cover geometry

[BlueCheetah66]

Aston Martin style waterslide sidepods were very short lived.

They are pretty much gone right?

I m pretty sure they are.

I was thinking how teams like Merc could get their undercut to be as big as the RB19s and thought that the waterside is taking up room that would allow that.

Mercedes never had very aggressive waterslide sidepods like Aston and other teams, and I don't even think they've ditched their vague waterslide shape.

[shady]

Theres a slight bulge under the 'ETR' in petronas on the sidepod similar to how the McL and RBR have bellies under the sidepods. Its interesting to see the ingestion, compression and expansion in the undercut area, looks like its another layer of the floor. MB look to be trying to follow with the shallowest of bellies but the chassis and layout are engineered for the hidepods.

[PlatinumZealot]

The slab-sides are gone and modified to include a long shallow undercut, similar to RB's upside down tunnel that might be helping to power up flow to the rear tyre squirt region. But seems the limitation of the chassis/mid-wing that undercut cannot be deep under the inlet like other teams. Seems that's the compromise here.

Not really true... the RedBull undercut seems to extend further back, but keep in mind the Mercedes side-pod starts further back, so in reality it's undercut is almost in the same position as the RedBull's.

[PlatinumZealot]

https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/upl ... 210-10.jpg

return to w02 sidepod inlets?

Pretty similar to the W04 with the inlet and top roll. Obviously they didn’t connect down the the floor those days (redbull did though)

https://www.racecar-engineering.com/wp ... mercgt.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Gdewj27.jpg

That design was clearly for the coanda exhaust though similar in appearance.

This 2023 "lip" design I am almost 100% sure it is not for down-wash, but to keep disturbances far away from the edge of the flow in yaw conditions. Red Bull and Ferrari you will notice, have lifted away their side-pods from the same floor edge zone so that the low quality part of the out-wash that is near the car side-pod does not disturb whats happening at the floor edges - which are very critical to performance. (see my thread on this topic!).

[F1Krof]

Aston Martin style waterslide sidepods were very short lived.

They are pretty much gone right?

I m pretty sure they are.

I was thinking how teams like Merc could get their undercut to be as big as the RB19s and thought that the waterside is taking up room that would allow that.

I don't believe they're gone. The latest rendition is McLaren's just a couple of races ago.

[f1rules]

this is from yesterday according to twitter, it looks like merc actually incorporated more waterslide no?

[GrizzleBoy]

I was indeed wrong.

From the side profile pics from the last page it looked to me like the sidepod edge had been straightened out and i couldnt see the valley but the above pic clearly shows its all still there.

[Ben31]

[Spoutnik]

[214270]

Same with the front:

[Fede90]

The new Mercedes’ rear body remember me the concept that has been used form Ferrari with F2012 car for the first time. Then evolved in the 2013.

[Cs98]

Same with the front:

No. Says rear.

[Puffpirat]

Same with the front:

No. Says rear.

Look at the front wing upper flaps. Lewis‘ is trimmed

[Owen.C93]

They’ve run it before so won’t show up on the update sheet.