2023 car comparison thread

[Vanja #66]

Swapping from their concept to a full RB/Ferrari-style a whole year into a 4 year aerodynamic regulation set was imo never really on the cards. If they swapped then they'd be a year behind working on the same problems and just be playing catch-up, like other engine manufacturers were for most of the hybrid era. That's not a way to win titles which is what merc is in the sport to do.. instead they're banking on their concept to work and for their development paths to be as fruitful as they initially expected, and that things will come good

It's a tough choice for them. On one hand, they spent the entire season trying to get to the bottom of their problems and never fully solved them. Whether they wanted to or maybe not is not clear. So loads of time and resources were used around zeropods.

On the other hand, if they wanted to give up on their direction for 2023, they needed to do that quite early in 2022 to catch up with RB and Ferrari. I don't think they did...

I'm fully expecting a lot wider "zeropod" design with mid wing kept and outward sloping sides like W13. Whether this can be still called zeropods or not... that's another discussion

[organic]

Swapping from their concept to a full RB/Ferrari-style a whole year into a 4 year aerodynamic regulation set was imo never really on the cards. If they swapped then they'd be a year behind working on the same problems and just be playing catch-up, like other engine manufacturers were for most of the hybrid era. That's not a way to win titles which is what merc is in the sport to do.. instead they're banking on their concept to work and for their development paths to be as fruitful as they initially expected, and that things will come good

It's a tough choice for them. On one hand, they spent the entire season trying to get to the bottom of their problems and never fully solved them. Whether they wanted to or maybe not is not clear. So loads of time and resources were used around zeropods.

On the other hand, if they wanted to give up on their direction for 2023, they needed to do that quite early in 2022 to catch up with RB and Ferrari. I don't think they did...

I'm fully expecting a lot wider "zeropod" design with mid wing kept and outward sloping sides like W13. Whether this can be still called zeropods or not... that's another discussion

Without Barcelona's false dawn they might have abandoned them

[Venturiation]

Swapping from their concept to a full RB/Ferrari-style a whole year into a 4 year aerodynamic regulation set was imo never really on the cards. If they swapped then they'd be a year behind working on the same problems and just be playing catch-up, like other engine manufacturers were for most of the hybrid era. That's not a way to win titles which is what merc is in the sport to do.. instead they're banking on their concept to work and for their development paths to be as fruitful as they initially expected, and that things will come good

It's a tough choice for them. On one hand, they spent the entire season trying to get to the bottom of their problems and never fully solved them. Whether they wanted to or maybe not is not clear. So loads of time and resources were used around zeropods.

On the other hand, if they wanted to give up on their direction for 2023, they needed to do that quite early in 2022 to catch up with RB and Ferrari. I don't think they did...

I'm fully expecting a lot wider "zeropod" design with mid wing kept and outward sloping sides like W13. Whether this can be still called zeropods or not... that's another discussion

they already said they can't fix the problems on the W13 , the fixes are applied to the W14

[Vanja #66]

Without Barcelona's false dawn they might have abandoned them

Very accurate, false dawn indeed

they already said they can't fix the problems on the W13 , the fixes are applied to the W14

Right, there it is, thanks

[ajprice]

I wonder how well the old MP4-26 sidepods would do with these new aero regs, seeing all those deep sidepod ridges.
They also featured a flat outside surface, to manage wake from the front tires.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... w&usqp=CAU https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... _FP2_1.jpg https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/imag ... A&usqp=CAU

Draggier? Inlets are bigger than anything

I know they're quite a lot bigger, but you could possibly close off the inner part, so you only had the outside part of the inlet, and then a straight ridge on the inside

Kinda like the old Ferrari sidepods, just pushed further out
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/tUZHTX7zr38/maxresdefault.jpg

I came here to ask the same about the MP4/26 sidepods with the 2023 cars having flat outer sidepods and deep channels, those Ferrari sidepods are interesting too, forgot about those.

[edgelo]

Surprisingly Ferrari seems to continue on their last year path

[JPower]

Surprisingly Ferrari seems to continue on their last year path

Why is that surprising?

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the car. Quite the opposite.

[Mattchu]

I do wish they`d get rid of those cover/plate things on the wheels, let us see the lovely magnesium BBS, OZ, etc spokes as for me every single one of these plates looks tacky. I`m surprised no-ones put flashing led`s in yet!

If you stripped the paint off you`d be hard pressed to tell the difference, some nice paint jobs though

[Andi76]

Is anyone else finding the lack of creativity of the 2023 cars disappointing?

Almost all of the cars launched so far seem to be some combination of 2022 Red Bull and 2022 Ferrari features (with honourable mention to 2022 Alpine), with little in the way of risk-taking -- unless I am mistaken that is!

The same old themes of round or staggered sidepod inlets, aggressive undercuts, wide downwashing sidepods, scooped out tub pods, cannon radiator outlets etc...

Same, same... Have the concerns of the 2022 regulations making the cars all look the same arrived a year late -- or did all the 2021 cars all look superficially the same at the same overview level anyway?

Last year we feared all cars would look the same, and they didn't. But this year they definitely all look alike.

It looks just like anything else we have seen so far

All the cars are looking pretty the same

All cars look the same so far.

Also it makes me sad to see such quick design convergence across the grid. Seems like we'll be having Ferrari and Haas on one side and 7 other lookalikes and whatever Mercedes ends up looking like.

Did you really expect anything different? For example, 1998 was a year of big rule changes. In year two, almost many cars looked either like the McLaren (world champion), or like a mixture of the world champion car mixed with ingredients from the runner-up (Ferrari). And that is always the case! Therefore, it was quite clear that the new car will be Red Bull copies or hybrids between Ferrari and Red Bull! Besides, they almost have to, as Vanja has pointed out perfectly.

[AR3-GP]

The far bigger elephant in the room is the gulf in performance between the top 3 and everyone else.

I could care less about what the cars look like, but to have someone like Fernando Alonso driving backmarker cars is criminal.

[chrisc90]

If Merc go the zero pod route I think they are committed to the rest of the regulation era. A massive change in concept 2 years into a 4 year stint would be brutal for the design team.

It will be interesting to go back to the W13 video that Kyle.Engineers did which explains how they managed to work to the loophole in the first place. From memory, I think the tolerances were pretty tight to how they got away with it. It might not just be a case of extending the bottom part outwards.



Video for reference

[edgelo]

Surprisingly Ferrari seems to continue on their last year path

Why is that surprising?

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the car. Quite the opposite.

There was a bit of sarcasm in my post, because all of the cars we’ve seen so far look very similar and i’m happy for seeing a different concept.

But there is a truth too. When all the teams go on the same idea you tend to believe it’s the good one.

No doubt F75 was a really fast car, so the concept has proven to be good.

[Raleigh]

We saw a lot of design convergence during 2022 already.

McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams all started out with unique sidepods and then moved to direct Red Bull copies/clones.

Alpha Tauri and Haas were already using similar concepts to the parent teams and in the case of Haas refined their sidepod version to full Ferrari clone status.

Alpine gets credit for having their own sidepod concept but in many ways they managed to come up with shared ideas to both Ferrari and Red Bull.

Alfa Romeo did their own thing with floating sidepods all through 2022. Worth noting however that their 2023 concept is effectively Red Bull sidepods with Ferrari inlets.

And then Mercedes stood out as the only team using small sidepods all the way through 2022. Everyone else either started with large Red Bull/Ferrari-esque sidepods or moved to them despite compromises.

[Venturiation]

scarbs is expecting the ferrari to be behind redbull and mercedes

[ali623]

The far bigger elephant in the room is the gulf in performance between the top 3 and everyone else.

I could care less about what the cars look like, but to have someone like Fernando Alonso driving backmarker cars is criminal.

That’ll close up a fair bit this season I think. The gulf last year was nowhere near as bad as 2017/18 for example.