2022 Car Launches and Livery Thread

[Bagwan]

Porpoising has to make fast curves a far greater challenge on the limit, it must really also affect corner grip balance, not my idea of fun. I'm getting vibes that this could be far from being a typical season.

Something I just read coming from Alpine was that they weren't using DRS , and , although they didn't say it , it smelled to me like they may have had some problem with detachment when they opened it .

They said the problem was at top speed , and that they weren't scared to open it , but didn't because they were being cautious .
The interview stated that they had tamed the back end of the car with Alonso's adjustments , but any comparisons with the others were made with estimates of speed gained through DRS , not reality .

Hey , maybe the DRS will prove to be a liability because it triggers this instability inherent in these design parameters , and it will force them to do away with it !
A guy can hope .

[airshifter]

These guys are crafty Baggy, they will get it all figured out in time for the races.

But we can still hope that DRS goes away regardless!

[Bagwan]

Big , crazy stories out there about the new Merc , with rumours saying it may have no sidepods at all .
I've seen conceptual pictures , and it looks pretty cool , evoking an early era car for me , but I have no idea if it's even possible .

They are saying it will hit the track tomorrow , so we'll see if the rumours are true .

[airshifter]

Yep, the rumors on that one have been swirling really hard. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

No telling what other changes we will see from the other teams as well. But it looks like they are all working hard.

[Zico]

Big , crazy stories out there about the new Merc , with rumours saying it may have no sidepods at all .
I've seen conceptual pictures , and it looks pretty cool , evoking an early era car for me , but I have no idea if it's even possible .

They are saying it will hit the track tomorrow , so we'll see if the rumours are true .

Yes, crazy stories indeed.
I initially dismissed it as a wind up but it has gained so much traction that I'm now trying to imagine that it might be possible and where they might be pulling the air required for cooling from
Still having problems believing it though as it would likely require a pretty major repackaging/redesign... in a season of tightened budget constraints.

I guess we will find out soon enough..

[Bagwan]

If it does indeed look like the rendering I've seen , it gives me hope that the new rules might have inspired a new generation of cars here that don't look as if one painted them all the same colour , they would all look identical .

Already , we have some different approaches to the sidepod designs , but removing them altogether was not on my radar at all .
If this thing is real , it's exciting as hell , in my eyes , even if they've made a sizeable jump away from the others in performance .

It begs a lot of questions , though .
How can they cool things properly ?
How can they make up for loss , presumably , in downforce ?
How can they still pass a side impact test in that configuration ?

The bonus in a lack of drag is obvious .

Jeez , I hope it's for real . The thing looks like a friggin' fighter jet .

[airshifter]

Bagwan, I'll give you all the answers if and when it happens. Well, after the more technical people get enough photos and explain to use how it happens. How about just wait until I send you a link or ten if it happens?


There doesn't seem to be a lot of options other than centerline cooling if they went to an actual "NO" sidepod. But the Williams has tiny pods now, and they might be able to do it. With all the regs being so hard to decipher, I'm not sure what options they would have. I would have to guess that with budget restrictions and such that they wouldn't fake the initial pods to only make massive changes later, so the basic concept would likely still be similar. And really the technical regs seem to require that the primary air to water coolers are fairly simple by requirement.

But I've often wondered why nobody has come out of the box on radiators. It would seem to me a long thin radiator mounted on top of the floor, as an example, might be easy to work around and have the same volume and heat removal as a radiator more rectangular. But there might be something in the regs that prohibit such an approach.



We will find out soon, and at least this time we might see some actual coverage without waiting for all the press made videos







ETA, maybe ScarbsTech has it nailed?

[Bagwan]

Bagwan, I'll give you all the answers if and when it happens. Well, after the more technical people get enough photos and explain to use how it happens. How about just wait until I send you a link or ten if it happens?


There doesn't seem to be a lot of options other than centerline cooling if they went to an actual "NO" sidepod. But the Williams has tiny pods now, and they might be able to do it. With all the regs being so hard to decipher, I'm not sure what options they would have. I would have to guess that with budget restrictions and such that they wouldn't fake the initial pods to only make massive changes later, so the basic concept would likely still be similar. And really the technical regs seem to require that the primary air to water coolers are fairly simple by requirement.

But I've often wondered why nobody has come out of the box on radiators. It would seem to me a long thin radiator mounted on top of the floor, as an example, might be easy to work around and have the same volume and heat removal as a radiator more rectangular. But there might be something in the regs that prohibit such an approach.



We will find out soon, and at least this time we might see some actual coverage without waiting for all the press made videos







ETA, maybe ScarbsTech has it nailed?

It looks like Scarbs wasn't that far off , but it doesn't look quite as radical as it might have .
The mirror mount seems to be taking the place of some of the crash structure , and there are rumblings about it being too "aero" .

I understand there is a "melted chocolate bar" look to it , not so much like a fighter jet .

[airshifter]

The new Merc sidepods look really strange to me, but really they are still bigger than what some were claiming. It looks to me like they just moved most of the intake surfaces down lower and essentially rotated a small intake 90 degrees. Hard to say how it will work in the long run, with teams taking such differing approaches.

RB are expected to change to some visible upgrades tomorrow, and spent today doing baseline testing on the existing stuff.


Ferrari look to be in decent shape, but no major changes to be seen yet.


We are only a week off the first race when we find out how it all sorts out this year!

[Zico]

Not quite 'sidepodless' but still impressively reduced nonetheless.
I always (wrongly?) assumed the sidepod dimensions were cooling airflow volume dictated but now it appears that they may have been more structure dimension related?

Judging from Merc possibly/allegedly being able to run their engines in a very lean high power mode last year... and now this, I can't help wondering if there is a corealation and Merc have made some clever cooling tech advances to allow them to be able to do either.