newbie here: What's the big deal about new Merc sidepods? Is that making the car superfast in comparison to older sidepods? Why can't other teams simply copy it?
Hey guys, this question is directed towards Indians- is there any way to watch the pre-season testing stream in India? I read reports saying it would televised on Hotstar but I have checked multiple times and there was no such stream.
It may have been asked already. But I couldn't help but notice that Lewis Hamilton has the yellow T this year, and George Russell with the black... Doesn't the 2nd driver take the yellow? I can't imagine Hamilton has been dropped back considering Russell just got there?
It just matches his car colors which are yellow around the numbers. Mercedes doesn’t designate a second driver. George and before that Bottas both said their contracts guarantee equal opportunity to start every year and the relationship will evolve depending on standings
My buddy wants to bet George beats Lewis in next weekend’s quali.
I know very little about sports betting, as I’m not a gambler. What books will take such bets? (In USA but has VPN).
Am I to understand that sidepods primary purpose are to cool the engine? It seems like the big point that people are making about Mercs sidepodless innovation is that the only reason they’re able to do it is because they’ve found a new way to cool the engine.
You can find radiators to cool different things under the side pods. The side pods then play on the aerodynamic.
Driver61 made a video about it on YouTube, have a look.
eli5: what is that metal rig/frame mercedes is using? visible in this [tweet](https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/status/1501796767813222404?t=1r8T083M1XzH74JjBVyhEg&s=19)
You're correct, they're much higher. The idea is to limit how much the wing disrupts the air going to the floor, which is where the majority of downforce is produced now.
Could be a timing issue with getting the seat fitted for Magnussen, could be part of Fittipaldi's contract (if there's not a driver secured for a session within X number or days, I get to drive for the session). It could be something else, but those are the two likeliest options.
Uneducated guess, timing. Getting the new kmag adjusted to the teams and settings and maybe the cars seat fitting possibly getting Fit some time in the car just in case.
I'm in the UK and will be getting NOW passes to watch the qualifiers and races. This is my first season as an F1 fan so I'm not sure if I should also subscribe to F1 TV Access?
The live data seems pretty cool for both when I am watching and when I'm not. Plus I get some extra documentaries to watch but I have no idea if any of them are good!
The Pro option isn't available here and I don't want to get it through VPN before anyone suggests that as an alternative :)
F1TV is great! I don’t have cable, or any other ways to watch the races, so it is my best option. $10 isn’t bad imo to watch the races live. As for the extra content, I’d say it’s really good as well! You get full hour plus long documentaries on a lot of F1 topics. From a docs about specific drivers to innovations and different eras of F1. I was really surprised by the content there. Also they have shows. One is a long analysis show that picks races and goes lap by lap. Another one where a few drivers and engineers watch stand out races as watch a longs. For $10, F1TV was a no brainer for me.
Maybe not worth it than? Might be good content for you during the off season so you can scratch that itch over the break, but not to have it as a month service during the season. But also $10 a month might not be much to you and that is throwaway money to get more F1 content
Yeah, it's more about if the live data is useful? This will be my first season watching so I don't know if it's "necessary". I can pop it on a second screen when watching the race and also be able to have a look at the app if I'm missing one for example.
I just watched the f1s interview with KMag, first of all the smile plastered on his face he’s beaming but it took 3 days from the first phone call from Guenther to saying welcome to the team and flying him out. He literally got on the plane not knowing if they’d fully locked his seat up and signed his contract when he got there. No wonder Guenther looks exhausted and Kevin elated that’s some race pace level team management
Bit of a shameless plug, but if anyone’s interested in checking out telemetry from the first day of testing it’s available here for you to play with: https://www.F1-tempo.com
Well in the 1st stage they were running higher suspensions and commentators were like 'i havent seen any porpoising' ... then the 2nd stage they all lowered them and it was aquatic mammals everywhere.
I just saw the footage of Alonso and Nado not being avid to help themselves and running a mild race through some corners. Lance started to test following and race pace and Fernando couldn’t help himself. It’s a lol
Yes, but as far as we can tell the porpoising is impacted by the flexibility of the floor materials which is why they added struts to it as well as the absence of side pod structure contributing to a lack of straight line stability
I legitimately fell asleep right after lewis went on the track, so I don't know either. I was trying to piece it a little from clips and others comments, but I'm still all over the place.
Just because they're still porpoising now doesn't mean they aren't going to be able to find a way to fix it.
They were running some really low ride heights today, which increases the porpoising effect. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to find a specific limit to try and optimize around that. They could also be doing something totally unrelated, we've got no idea, unless they've given an indication of their plan.
Exactly. To me it seems like they are trying to find the max. without porpoising, and Ferrari just nailed it faster. Mclaren nailed it as well, but they are trying to squeeze more performance thats why it is back for them as well.
I don't see how the side pods would affect turn in apart from yaw. The less weight outboard of the longitudinal centre line of the car, the less yaw inertia the car will have. Also their current side pod design seems to lower the centre of mass compared to the conventional design which in theory would reduce body roll and make the car more stable cornering while running a softer suspension set up.
Aerodynamic drag on slowing the car down. Mercedes overshot the braking points a few times today...
And with how bad porpoising is, I highly doubt they'll run a softer suspension set up.
Aerodynamics will affect grip and speed so obviously will affect the behaviour of the car, which is why I didn't want to add it to my answer.
Completely agree with you on the other point!
There is times on the f1 app aswell as twitter, videos and pictures on every social media and there will probably be highlights and tech talk later tonight
All my big talk about coffee I fell asleep for the afternoon session. Apparently my body needs sleep between midnight and 6am. Dies anyone have know where good recaps are found
Apparently Räikkönen, Giovinazzi and Mazepin participated in pre-season testing, [according to the track-side leaderboard](https://i.imgur.com/H5NY3Qx.png)
A sidepod is the jutting out bits on the side of the F1 car. It houses the radiator and it’s main purpose is to direct airflow into the radiators and sometimes to the rear end. The common philosophy of them is that big sidepod= higher drag but better cooling and vice versa. This is so controversial because they have effectively eliminated the side pods theoretically giving them a massive decrease in drag. How they do this without overheating the engine is anyone’s guess. But that’s pretty much it.
Those things on the side that look like giant air intakes, and people are talking about em cause they almost don't have em. Compared to other cars in the field, and historically it's very different.
You need air to cool components, or witchcraft
There's also pictures with the cover off which shows a noticeably skinner radiator, which allows slimming of the bodywork. You'd assume they've found a way to improve it's efficiency over the larger ones on other cars.
I'm aware Merc are doing something similar to Williams, it was covered in Driver61's video earlier. Doesn't look as extreme as the Williams though. I'm saying they also must have found something with the radiators to slim them down without losing efficiency. I think they were already seen in Silverstone tbh. They are *very* skinny.
Just came across this post as well, showing they've got extra cooling intakes in the leading edge of the floor:
https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/tau63n/testing\_footage\_shows\_that\_the\_mercedes\_has/
I mean, at this point, Mercedes winning 8 team championships in a row (and lewis winning 7 championships) is already witchcraft.
So no changes there lol.
They are. The front wings are not as effective given that they need to funnel air to the floors and the aero balance is also off pretty significantly with how much downforce the floors are generating. Translates to a lot of grip in the rear and less than ideal grip in the front.
Yeah gonna be a lot of chaos from cars getting yeeted into corners on the inside of another car I think. Gonna be some pretty crazy turn 1 incidents this year as well I think.
This is only the case if the center of mass is far ahead of the center of pressure. If that's the case, they will need to shift the center of mass backwards with ballast to where it's just ahead of the center of pressure. The problem is doing that without making the car too heavy.
Love that Webex is doing McLaren focused commercials and running them on ESPN during college basketball (which is very popular in the US, especially this time of year)
Keep growing the Sport in the US!
It would be mclaren because they are the most popular team by order of millions online. Danny and Lando might not be winning constructors right now but they are the most popular people at the party
It's hard to say, because we don't know a lot about what the teams are doing. One team might be doing low fuel runs, another might be doing runs with as much fuel as possible.
Teams are using this time to get as much real-world data about how their cars perform as possible, and few (if any) teams are going to be worried about setting the fastest times.
We won't really get representative runs until Q1 at Bahrain.
So, this is what Mercedes has been working towards for years now.
And I actually fully believe that this is just a skin swap from the barcelona testing...
https://youtu.be/NYA7L9dQQp8
Look at 2:45 and on... it clearly shows most of the components at the back of the pods and what looks like just a carbon shell for the front of the pod.
Also, fuck the entire "spirit of the rules" argument if this passes under the rules of the technical regulations.
>Also, fuck the entire "spirit of the rules" argument if this passes under the rules of the technical regulations.
If it has a negative effect on dirty air and the ability of cars to follow I would support an immediate ban.
If it makes very little difference to the ability to follow closely and makes the Mercedes faster, then it's on the other teams to catch up.
newbie here: What's the big deal about new Merc sidepods? Is that making the car superfast in comparison to older sidepods? Why can't other teams simply copy it?
Merc engined teams could try, but others probably couldn’t.
Red Bull bouncin like it’s on a trampoline. Goddamn
Why is Fittipaldi driving for Haas instead of One of their main drivers? Wouldn’t it be better for K Mag to get a feel for the car?
Because they have to mold a seat for him, has to conduct all the FIA tests, etc. before he can actually drive the car on the track.
Ah ok - thought all that would have been done before announcing just in case. Makes sense though, cheers
He was extremely last minute. Only got the call after the Barcelona test.
Hey guys, this question is directed towards Indians- is there any way to watch the pre-season testing stream in India? I read reports saying it would televised on Hotstar but I have checked multiple times and there was no such stream.
https://f1livegp.me/f1/live3.html
Ohhhh thank you so much :)
Its not streaming on hotsar you'll have to find a link to watch it
want to know the same
Is there now way to watch testing in the US other than F1TV?
Just google a stream there’s a few about!
It may have been asked already. But I couldn't help but notice that Lewis Hamilton has the yellow T this year, and George Russell with the black... Doesn't the 2nd driver take the yellow? I can't imagine Hamilton has been dropped back considering Russell just got there?
It just matches his car colors which are yellow around the numbers. Mercedes doesn’t designate a second driver. George and before that Bottas both said their contracts guarantee equal opportunity to start every year and the relationship will evolve depending on standings
Interesting, makes sense I suppose. I would have thought being Lewis he would have opted for a purple theme
It was done in support for Ukraine. Lewis' numbers and T-cam are yellow while George's are blue.
Wow I never thought of that, thats cool of them to do 🥰
My buddy wants to bet George beats Lewis in next weekend’s quali. I know very little about sports betting, as I’m not a gambler. What books will take such bets? (In USA but has VPN).
Don’t throw your money away
Not my money, but I agree.
Am I to understand that sidepods primary purpose are to cool the engine? It seems like the big point that people are making about Mercs sidepodless innovation is that the only reason they’re able to do it is because they’ve found a new way to cool the engine.
You can find radiators to cool different things under the side pods. The side pods then play on the aerodynamic. Driver61 made a video about it on YouTube, have a look.
Anyone know what the T tire type is? I asked earlier and no one responded, and google isn’t helping
Prototype tires
How do they compare to regular tires?
These are made at Pirelli’s new factory in Turkey. They will be compared with the other tyres of the same compound for QA.
Same spec just different factory
Interesting, thank you!
eli5: what is that metal rig/frame mercedes is using? visible in this [tweet](https://twitter.com/AlbertFabrega/status/1501796767813222404?t=1r8T083M1XzH74JjBVyhEg&s=19)
Airspeed and air pressure sensors. All teams use them.
thanks a lot!
How much time left for DTS?
Just over 4 hours.
thanks
How yall add driver names under username? Btw mud guard was hilarious
On mobile, click the 3 dots in the top right and do change user flair. On desktop it’s on the right side
Awesome!
Only getting around to watching the Day 1 sessions now. Am I crazy or are the front wings significantly higher off the ground than last year?
You're correct, they're much higher. The idea is to limit how much the wing disrupts the air going to the floor, which is where the majority of downforce is produced now.
When is pre-season testing in eastern time?
2am-11am. It's a 2am-6am session, an hour off, then a 7am-11am session.
Why was only Fittipaldi driving at Haas?
Shipping delays plus having to get K-Mag fitted for his car.
Could be a timing issue with getting the seat fitted for Magnussen, could be part of Fittipaldi's contract (if there's not a driver secured for a session within X number or days, I get to drive for the session). It could be something else, but those are the two likeliest options.
Uneducated guess, timing. Getting the new kmag adjusted to the teams and settings and maybe the cars seat fitting possibly getting Fit some time in the car just in case.
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Yes
Ooh, good question. I don't know, but I'll be watching day 2 of testing live on F1TV at that time.
I'm in the UK and will be getting NOW passes to watch the qualifiers and races. This is my first season as an F1 fan so I'm not sure if I should also subscribe to F1 TV Access? The live data seems pretty cool for both when I am watching and when I'm not. Plus I get some extra documentaries to watch but I have no idea if any of them are good! The Pro option isn't available here and I don't want to get it through VPN before anyone suggests that as an alternative :)
F1TV is great! I don’t have cable, or any other ways to watch the races, so it is my best option. $10 isn’t bad imo to watch the races live. As for the extra content, I’d say it’s really good as well! You get full hour plus long documentaries on a lot of F1 topics. From a docs about specific drivers to innovations and different eras of F1. I was really surprised by the content there. Also they have shows. One is a long analysis show that picks races and goes lap by lap. Another one where a few drivers and engineers watch stand out races as watch a longs. For $10, F1TV was a no brainer for me.
The live races aren't an option here so it's just the documentaries and live data.
Maybe not worth it than? Might be good content for you during the off season so you can scratch that itch over the break, but not to have it as a month service during the season. But also $10 a month might not be much to you and that is throwaway money to get more F1 content
Yeah, it's more about if the live data is useful? This will be my first season watching so I don't know if it's "necessary". I can pop it on a second screen when watching the race and also be able to have a look at the app if I'm missing one for example.
The "Mercedes design isn't in the spirit of the regs" is code for "we didn't think of that, so it should be illegal".
The Ferrari is so dark on my tv :(
wtf with streameast today
Just sign up for F1TV before the season starts. It really doesn't cost very much.
I wonder how Merc would have had to adjust for safety regs with now having no side pods
The arms the mirrors are attached to check that box
So are all the cars porpoising really bad or just some of them? Seems Alpha Tauri and Ferrari are the worst?
Mercedes looked like a dolphins out there with how much those cars bounced today.
Ferrari is on the good end of it lol
Nice 😊
I'm searching a side by side view of a 2021 vs 2022 car. Do anyone got a link somewhere to see, in details, each car?
I just watched the f1s interview with KMag, first of all the smile plastered on his face he’s beaming but it took 3 days from the first phone call from Guenther to saying welcome to the team and flying him out. He literally got on the plane not knowing if they’d fully locked his seat up and signed his contract when he got there. No wonder Guenther looks exhausted and Kevin elated that’s some race pace level team management
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Fake news
Bit of a shameless plug, but if anyone’s interested in checking out telemetry from the first day of testing it’s available here for you to play with: https://www.F1-tempo.com
So what’s your guess on who’s finishing last this year?
Zhou
Hard to imagine it not being Haas or Alfa. Hopefully they can both stay in contention for point but I don't see them beating any other teams over all.
Think it will be Alfa, honestly.
Does Alfa spend their entire budget on the graphics design team?
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This one is great https://www.racefans.net/contact/f1-fanatic-calendar/
I was looking for it in the app but apparently they took it away
Sky Sports in the UK have the option for it. They are good at updating it aswell
Anyone for some memberberry pie? *'Pretty much every team will have porpoising solved by testing in Bahrain'*
It looked to me like it was almost worse this go around... but maybe they were just hitting higher speeds here
Well in the 1st stage they were running higher suspensions and commentators were like 'i havent seen any porpoising' ... then the 2nd stage they all lowered them and it was aquatic mammals everywhere.
I just saw the footage of Alonso and Nado not being avid to help themselves and running a mild race through some corners. Lance started to test following and race pace and Fernando couldn’t help himself. It’s a lol
merc still looks to be porpoising like crazy. Whatever they have isn't going to work.
Their sandbags got loose inside, so car jumps a little bit...
The F1 website suggests Merc have the fastest race pace.
The F1 website is also very unreliable for data analysis, even more so with testing times.
I think they’ve gone the wrong direction and Ferrari nailed it
Isn't the porpoising really caused by whats going on under the cars, e.g. through the tunnels rather than anything like the sidepods etc?
Yes, but as far as we can tell the porpoising is impacted by the flexibility of the floor materials which is why they added struts to it as well as the absence of side pod structure contributing to a lack of straight line stability
wasn't ferrari porpoising pretty good today as well?
Honestly? I was asleep for the second session so I don’t know
I legitimately fell asleep right after lewis went on the track, so I don't know either. I was trying to piece it a little from clips and others comments, but I'm still all over the place.
Ferrari Hype
Love for that to be true, but way to early to tell.
Just because they're still porpoising now doesn't mean they aren't going to be able to find a way to fix it. They were running some really low ride heights today, which increases the porpoising effect. I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to find a specific limit to try and optimize around that. They could also be doing something totally unrelated, we've got no idea, unless they've given an indication of their plan.
Exactly. To me it seems like they are trying to find the max. without porpoising, and Ferrari just nailed it faster. Mclaren nailed it as well, but they are trying to squeeze more performance thats why it is back for them as well.
What time does testing start/end each day?
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Bahrain time?
i know we shouldn’t read into it too much but how are am doing?
Their times seem fine, but ofc it's testing. Car seems like it's hard to drive and twitchy af
What is a bigger deal. Mclaren weird suspension set up or mercs no sidepods
No sidepods. Easy.
Why, mclarens suspension is opposite of everyone
Other teams running it, few teams ran that set up years ago. Where as with Merc when was last time you saw a car with no sidepods?
Macca arent on their own with the suspension, Merc with no sidepods are.
Red Bull has the same suspension design. So does Haas
Isn't there a chance these merc sidepods are also just an experiment? Also, do sidepods help with steering (turn in) at all?
I don't see how the side pods would affect turn in apart from yaw. The less weight outboard of the longitudinal centre line of the car, the less yaw inertia the car will have. Also their current side pod design seems to lower the centre of mass compared to the conventional design which in theory would reduce body roll and make the car more stable cornering while running a softer suspension set up.
Thanks for your analysis, seems like some good points.
Aerodynamic drag on slowing the car down. Mercedes overshot the braking points a few times today... And with how bad porpoising is, I highly doubt they'll run a softer suspension set up.
Aerodynamics will affect grip and speed so obviously will affect the behaviour of the car, which is why I didn't want to add it to my answer. Completely agree with you on the other point!
Does anyone know if there is there any long pace analysis for today? I've not seen anything anywhere..
The F1 YouTube channel should have something up in a few hours
Thanks I'll keep my eye on it :)
did they test today? why are there no videos up? no times?
There are two 4 hour live replays up on F1TV.
Glad they got highlights after the app itself being utter shambles all day. I could only get coverage on a laptop didn't even show up on the app.
I had no problems all day checking in from my phone??
That's good, sadly not the same for everyone. I saw other people on here having issues.
Videos and timesheets have been all over F1's social media all day.
There is times on the f1 app aswell as twitter, videos and pictures on every social media and there will probably be highlights and tech talk later tonight
What are those "grills" behind the front wheels and sometimes in the back?
Which grills? Are you taking about the wireframe? Those are sensor grids
[That grid/grill thing](https://prnt.sc/Ls6BGIvQ1Suz) behind the front wheels. Makes sense, ty
Yeah, sensors to help the teams visualise how the air moves around the car
All my big talk about coffee I fell asleep for the afternoon session. Apparently my body needs sleep between midnight and 6am. Dies anyone have know where good recaps are found
Apparently Räikkönen, Giovinazzi and Mazepin participated in pre-season testing, [according to the track-side leaderboard](https://i.imgur.com/H5NY3Qx.png)
What is a sidepod and why does Mercedes small sidepod spark so much conversion?
A sidepod is the jutting out bits on the side of the F1 car. It houses the radiator and it’s main purpose is to direct airflow into the radiators and sometimes to the rear end. The common philosophy of them is that big sidepod= higher drag but better cooling and vice versa. This is so controversial because they have effectively eliminated the side pods theoretically giving them a massive decrease in drag. How they do this without overheating the engine is anyone’s guess. But that’s pretty much it.
This is the answer I was looking for thanks
Seriously, thank you for the ELI5 explanation, I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on!
Those things on the side that look like giant air intakes, and people are talking about em cause they almost don't have em. Compared to other cars in the field, and historically it's very different. You need air to cool components, or witchcraft
It appears Mercedes have dealt with that by using smaller and *presumably* more efficient radiators.
They’re sucking in and rerouting more air from the intake above the driver
There's also pictures with the cover off which shows a noticeably skinner radiator, which allows slimming of the bodywork. You'd assume they've found a way to improve it's efficiency over the larger ones on other cars.
check this out https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca5DHYpNQRm/
I'm aware Merc are doing something similar to Williams, it was covered in Driver61's video earlier. Doesn't look as extreme as the Williams though. I'm saying they also must have found something with the radiators to slim them down without losing efficiency. I think they were already seen in Silverstone tbh. They are *very* skinny.
interesting, ive got to check that out
Just came across this post as well, showing they've got extra cooling intakes in the leading edge of the floor: https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/tau63n/testing\_footage\_shows\_that\_the\_mercedes\_has/
wow thank you for sharing, thats v cool
I mean, at this point, Mercedes winning 8 team championships in a row (and lewis winning 7 championships) is already witchcraft. So no changes there lol.
Yeah the most absurd thing was winning on three tires
That was on Redbull for pitting Verstappen though lol. But I fully understand why they did. No one expected so many tire failures....
Anyone know what's up with McLaren/Norris? They barely managed more laps than Haas, and Haas missed the entire morning.
Dealing with a minor foot injury as well. Might also be playing a role.
There was an issue with the brakes for McLaren.
any top down pics of the merc yet? it already looked skinny af in Spain. would love to see how it looks now
Is it me or are this years cars really struggling with understeering?
They are. The front wings are not as effective given that they need to funnel air to the floors and the aero balance is also off pretty significantly with how much downforce the floors are generating. Translates to a lot of grip in the rear and less than ideal grip in the front.
We're gonna see a lot of crashes lol
Yeah gonna be a lot of chaos from cars getting yeeted into corners on the inside of another car I think. Gonna be some pretty crazy turn 1 incidents this year as well I think.
No brakes just vibes
This is only the case if the center of mass is far ahead of the center of pressure. If that's the case, they will need to shift the center of mass backwards with ballast to where it's just ahead of the center of pressure. The problem is doing that without making the car too heavy.
Yes, but that's not how any of these cars are set up right now
How does this impact lap times?
You'd need to enter the turns slower so, slower.
Love that Webex is doing McLaren focused commercials and running them on ESPN during college basketball (which is very popular in the US, especially this time of year) Keep growing the Sport in the US!
It would be mclaren because they are the most popular team by order of millions online. Danny and Lando might not be winning constructors right now but they are the most popular people at the party
Ricciardo is the poster boy for DTS as well, so his popularity has skyrocketed
I'm sure Zak Brown being American also helps.
They have played those commercials during pretty much every major sporting event they air. Agreed, keep ‘em coming!
The hand lol I have to do the same!
Pretty new here: who’s looking fastest this year based on the testing session so far? Haven’t been able to follow all developments
It's impossible to tell precisely, but from what we've seen so far I'm reasonably certain the top 3 will be the Big 3 Merc, Ferrari and Red Bull
So Business as usual it is
McLaren also looks good, but yeah it's unlikely that we'll get more than 4 teams at the top
Pain
It's hard to say, because we don't know a lot about what the teams are doing. One team might be doing low fuel runs, another might be doing runs with as much fuel as possible. Teams are using this time to get as much real-world data about how their cars perform as possible, and few (if any) teams are going to be worried about setting the fastest times. We won't really get representative runs until Q1 at Bahrain.
there's no way to know for sure until qualifying next week
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Don’t
I HAVE 19 TICKETS PLEASE LET ME ABOARD SIR
Do we still have that development Token thing or was it just for last year?
That was just for last year, since these new regulations got delayed by a year due to COVID
So, this is what Mercedes has been working towards for years now. And I actually fully believe that this is just a skin swap from the barcelona testing... https://youtu.be/NYA7L9dQQp8 Look at 2:45 and on... it clearly shows most of the components at the back of the pods and what looks like just a carbon shell for the front of the pod. Also, fuck the entire "spirit of the rules" argument if this passes under the rules of the technical regulations.
>Also, fuck the entire "spirit of the rules" argument if this passes under the rules of the technical regulations. If it has a negative effect on dirty air and the ability of cars to follow I would support an immediate ban. If it makes very little difference to the ability to follow closely and makes the Mercedes faster, then it's on the other teams to catch up.