Mercedes’ unconventional ‘zeropod’ concept did not yield the desired results as the team had hoped. According to Mercedes, the team believes that their unique car design could have been successful if they had the knowledge they currently possess under Formula 1’s current regulations. Going into the 2022 season, Mercedes was seen as the team to beat after winning eight consecutive Constructors’ titles. However, their W12 car, which featured innovative minimalist sidepods, faced setbacks and did not deliver the expected gains seen in wind tunnel testing.T
he team encountered significant difficulties with excessive porpoising, forcing them to raise the car’s ride height at the expense of downforce and lap time. Despite these challenges, Mercedes initially stuck with the concept but eventually switched to a more conventional design in the seventh round of the season, ultimately finishing second in the standings. Since then, Mercedes has made significant improvements to their latest W15 challenger, securing three victories in the four races leading up to the current summer break. Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin is confident that the abandoned ‘zeropod’ concept could have been successful if they had the knowledge they now possess. He stated that if any team had the opportunity to go back to 2021 with their current understanding, they would have the fastest car, as every team has gone through a learning phase. In this regard, Shovlin believes that Mercedes could have made the sidepods work.
However, Shovlin has ruled out the possibility of Mercedes reconsidering a return to the ‘zeropod’ design as he acknowledged that its current direction has yielded better results.”Would they have achieved the same level of performance as the current design of the car? Perhaps not,” he added.
“But the sidepods were not the main issue with that car, there were other factors that, if given the chance to fix two things, the sidepods would not have been on that list.”However, where we stand now is clearly a more effective solution.”
Shovlin has argued that the changing hierarchy at the front of the field this season demonstrates that teams still do not fully comprehend the current regulations.”Well, there will always be an element of trial and error because Formula 1 cars are the result of research, and not all research proves to be correct,” he explained.”You base it on theories about how you believe the aerodynamics and tires work, and what is important in terms of vehicle dynamics – constantly striving to improve your models to better reflect the car on the track.
“So I think there will always be an element of trial and error, our challenge was more that we were caught off guard by problems we had not anticipated well enough.”That has been one of the major challenges. However, if you look at the way teams’ performance is shifting at the moment, it is clear that no one fully understands all aspects of the current generation of cars.”
Photo from Mercedes Instagram
