The F1 2022 grid featured a number of diverse sidepod designs - as the teams didn't quite reach a consensus over the best layout. Here's a look at why ⬇️
had the most obvious upper SIS placement of all the teams, as it enclosed it within its own fairing, while the rest of its ‘zeropod’ clung more tightly to the car’s centreline.
While this was one of the factors in Mercedes being able to deliver a very narrow-bodied challenger, the main contribution comes courtesy of a design feature it had been championing for several years now, and has been appropriated by others over the course of the last couple of seasons too.It revolves around taking volume out of the rear section of the chassis, in order that the radiators can be inserted into the void created .
Obviously this poses some challenges in terms of the chassis’s design, given the crash tests that must be overcome for its homologation. However, there’s clearly an aerodynamic advantage that overrides any weight or structural compromises that must be made to achieve it, given the number of teams now pursuing the concept.
Although there were around five different sidepod solutions at the start of the 2022 season, it became apparent that the teams were set to converge on a smaller number by the end of the season.The Red Bull-style downwash ramp solution emerged as the one that most favoured, as a number of teams made the switch, likely because it offered the broadest performance window for the smallest development cost.
This is critical when we factor in both the cost cap and the restrictions on wind tunnel and CFD resources. Also, given the championship winner had opted for this solution, it made sense for those lower in the pecking order to gravitate in that direction.
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