New Ferrari looks largely the same, no major changes to my quick glance.
Only detail that is interesting is the addition of the slot gap separators on the front wing that Merc tried last year but were told were illegal. Apparently the aero rules were tweaked slightly for this year so they are now legal.
The rules are so fluid. Either complain or lobby enough and you will probably get your way.
We will have to see what the bigger teams hit the track with as I’m pretty certain all the teams are holding back. You don’t spend 6 months in the wind tunnel to come out looking the same.
Side comparison between the 2022 and 2023 Ferrari. I do like the Ferrari logo on the rear wing. That looks very classy and feels right.
Also want to reiterate that the 2022+ aero rules cars looks amazing. I loved them when they came out and now that they are getting tightened up, slimmed down, and dialed in, they look even better. Compared to the 2017-2021 cars, they looks lower, faster, sleeker.
Wow that looks dorky, maybe it’s just the paint job making it look more bulbous than it is. Always hated the side inlets on those cars. Looks like a Star Wars spaceship.
Interesting bits on the new Merc.
Also just saw this big honkin’ bulge on the Merc engine cover too, similar to Alpine:
I thought they would go back to a more traditional side pod, in their official release video discussion they basically said that level of redesign would have been another step back not forward in the short term and they saw enough potential in the existing design to continue it’s development in the off season. Time will tell if that was the right approach or not.
They kept saying last year the car had “1 second” of lap time in it if they could sort the porpoising/bouncing/stiffness out, and it showed at the end of the year that the car was getting back on terms with Ferrari and Red Bull. Maybe they’ve solved the issue or think they have.
The Upper Pod/2nd Pod/Shelve between merc and alpine is very similar. Infact the entire roll hoop back looks that way.
Why are teams coming out with real cars instead of livery dummy cars like last year? I realize last year was a little different because it was brand new and no one knew anything but I still didn’t expect to see this much detail in the livery launches
I think there are a lot of dummy parts on the 2023 cars as usual. And since the rules are pretty much the same as last year, there isn’t as big a need to hide everything, since a lot of the car should be carryover. Even the teams that say “we’ve redesigned everything”, the car generally looks pretty similar to last year’s end-of-year spec. And maybe with the budget cap, it’s less necessary to hide all your details since it’s harder to copy on a limited budget.
2022 was hidden well because no one knew what to expect or what the cars were going to look like. I think the main aero concepts were defined and now people know which direction to go so you see a lot of convergence and similarities across cars.
An alternate angle of the Merc makes that sidepod shelf look way more prominent, connecting to the halo basically.
That’s interesting. It’s like they took their zero pod and stacked a Ferrari bathtub pod on top of it.
The Merc actually has a substantial amount of changes. The inlets have been reshaped. Zero pod actually maintains some width which I’m guessing they suffered from flow separation or interaction problems as the air came down the side of the car. Added the second shelf as TJ discussed.
Stayed pull rod on the rear but a redesign of pickup points. Seems several teams have found a way to integrate the roll hoop.
Once I find more pictures I’ll have more. But the all black really makes it difficult to find all the little details. I’ll anxiously await the kyle engineers break down
Let’s see if Williams can do anything with the F45. Last year wasn’t so great for them.
Would like to see them have a better year for sure. Hopefully Mr Vowles will work out to be a good fit as the new team boss too.
Apparently that shape is called a “cooling cannon”. It was on the Red Bull last year.
I assume its accelerating air under the rear wing.
Im guessing just above the B wing. That is very low energy airflow. The air above the cooling cannon basically the shark fin would be what they would want to fill under the wing as it has more speed/energy/mass (cold vs hot) and can create more downforce.
That, l’d tune in for.
