F1 News: Mercedes New Sidepod Design For Monaco Grand Prix Spotted
Journalists are arriving at the Monaco Grand Prix this week for the weekend of racing, and it's no surprise that they've made a beeline for the Mercedes W14 which is confirmed to be bringing huge upgrades in the shape of a new floor, front suspension, and sidepods. Photographs of the upgrades have been taken, so let's take a look.
The Brackley-based squad were due to introduce the major upgrades to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, however, after its cancellation, sources close to the team confirmed that they would be introduced in Monte Carlo instead.
Despite developing the zero-pod design for over a year now, Lewis Hamilton finally spoke out about the direction they were taking, admitting that he didn't agree with it. This forced the team to make this big change, with Toto Wolff confirming that they would be starting from the bottom once again, but with a new concept that had a higher performance ceiling.
As the teams have begun arriving in Monaco, eagle-eyed fans have spotted the new sidepod design. Knowledgable fan Bryson Sullivan has shared some photos to Twitter, writing:
"The new sidepod is significantly wider than before and with a rounded inlet, but retains the aerodynamic fairing for the upper side impact structure (SIS) that was a persistent feature in the old zeropod design.
"The new design also keeps the vertical strake that hangs below the SIS wing, although it appears to have a deeper chord giving a larger overall area and lower aspect ratio."
This is certainly a move away from the team's original idea, and while the images aren't overly clear, it looks as though the sidepod intake is remarkably larger than what we've seen so far this year. As Bryson commented, the car still retains some of its original design, with it potentially taking inspiration from Aston Martin's AMR23 design.
It looks as though there's an undercut beneath the sidepod, but with these current images not being much to go on, it's difficult to extract much more information.
As usual, it's important to note that upgrades do not mean a sudden increase in performance. The team will use Monaco to extract as much data from these upgrades as possible to create a setup that will work. But reports are estimating an improvement in performance by as much as 2-tenths a lap. Only time will tell if this is realistic or not.
Arguably, more important changes will have taken place underneath the car, so let's cross our fingers that this means there's one more car in the battle at the front.