The whole floor is really weird. The SIS is placed in such a way that it really pokes out of the floor a lot. It's almost like a secondary small outwashing element. I wonder what kind of purpose such a solution might serve. Is it just to have a really clean, massive underfloor or could it serve some other purpose?
Would the pseudo-bargeboard SIS bump be attempting to push air out before it starts interfering with the airflow around the floor edge wing?
I'd say this floor design really looks quite aggressive from Williams. It looks like nothing I've ever seen from this generation of cars.
basti313 wrote: ↑14 Feb 2025, 14:24
I always get an impression of an unrefined structure/not finished car if I am looking at these flat surfaces, straight lines especially at the sidepod. Is anyone else doing such straight lines?
The general trend in 2024 was towards lower complexity. Ferrari abandoned their super complex floor design for a much more "basic" one. Weird solutions like S-ducts and bathtub sidepods disappeared entirely. Red Bull went back on all of their weird intakes and really unconventional cannon design. "Waterslide" sidepods gradually became less extreme over the season, especailly compared to 2023. Mercedes fully abandoned their zeropod concept. Mercedes also abandoned their "pseudo-Y250" wing and Alpine stopped bringing their really exotic front wings like this one.
https://imgur.com/a/KD6iiQf
It really does appear that the trend has been towards more simplistic design language, especially when it comes to intakes and floor geometry, but to some extent also with overbody aero. Admittedly small aero devices like winglets and wing mirrors keep getting more complex, but wings and sidepods are definitely getting smoother and less aggressive.
My interpretation of this is that the complexity of solutions gave really good downforce readings in the wind tunnel, but caused a lot of really bad correlation issues. So the teams simply abandoned a lot of the complex geometries to optimize around simpler, more predictable solutions that gave more reliable readings because it's better to have a car you trust than one that is "better", but completely impossible to tame.
A welcome surprise. 