After more than a season of Mercedes going it alone in pursuit of its zeropod concept, it finally abandoned the idea as it pursued the growing trend for what has become known as the downwash solution.
The fact that Red Bull had been so successful from the off with its downwash design inevitably prompted suggestions that Mercedes’ change of tack would bring some immediate and automatic gains.
However, the reality of Formula 1 car design is that things are never as simple as that.
In Mercedes’ case, the new direction for the sidepods was a bold move to make because, rather than the shift to downwash delivering an instant uptick in form, the squad was left facing a solution that, at best, delivered no benefit and at worst actually cost it lap time.
That is because although the zeropod design had come in for a lot of flak since the start of 2022, the idea was a good one in producing notable performance.
If we rewind to the original idea, the aim of the zeropod was quite simple. By separating the chassis structure and relocating the side impact bars to a specific area, Mercedes was able to reduce the sidepod size to an absolute minimum.
This had the double benefit of reducing drag and also, through the shaping of bodywork to make it effectively work like wings, help deliver extra downforce.
It has been suggested that in a straight side-by-side comparison, the zeropod was worth just more than 0.1 seconds over the downwash version that other teams have run with.
Source: Autosport