Have to admit, Mercedes’ definitely thinks outside the box. Their interpretation of the rules are genius. This is what I love about F1. Let’s just see how well their vision performs on track.

The fact that f1 teams can manage such innovations under these TIGHT rules is fascinating

I have been smiling from ear to ear during this pre-season so far. This is one of the things that has been missing from F1 the past few regulation changes. All of the different interpretations of the rules, the different solutions. It's awesome. I don't think we've seen this much variance in designs since the '90s. Maybe even the '80s. Unfortunately, ultimately one concept will reign supreme over all and then all the teams will again look the same, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

I remember people telling me I was crazy to think all the cars would look different.

While I'm not a Mercedes fan, you've got to respect the boldness of their design. 8 Constructors Championships in a row it would have been easy for them to approach the new regs conservatively. They did the opposite, which takes some guts to do.

I have the feeling that this year we will have a lot more DNFs due to damaged underbody edges than in previous years.

I have to admit, Mercedes is very consistent with cutting edge unique ideas. As much as I'd want to see another team come with a unique idea, still, full props to Mercedes for always delivering something new every year.

Really appreciate the effort by The Race to describe the changes. The side-by-side pics and colouring helps a lot. Great job!

Man you gotta hand it to them, they’re always making the most cutting edge technology. DAS last year and this wild design this year. As an engineer it’s so much fun watching the teams push each other like this

Mercedes always impressed me with their innovations! I think this the spirit of F1 and hopefully it doesn't get banned regardless if it's performance is good enough.

Tens years later: How did you end up working as an aeronautical engineer? I was 14 years old and trying to understand the 2022 F1 cars...

If they don't land pole, it'll be interesting to see what happens when they're following other cars for long periods. Tiny pods, high track temprature and hot exhaust gases......it's going to be on 🔥

Lewis : " Bono, My side-pods are gone " 😂

this aged well 🥛

"No Mercedes you will not have the sidepod."

I think Mercedes have lawyers who started out as engineers... They usually know the regulations better than anyone

I honestly hope that all the different innovations kick in as well and we have more teams to fight for the win and not have to copy or will copy the best variant. I really like that all the cars are so different (:

In F1, innovation means nothing if it doesn't give you a competitive advantage. Only time will tell, as they say.

The best way to bypass the crash test is to make it look like your car has already been in an accident.

Us Fans have to remember, "Testing" does not mean it meets the final design. Perhaps going "extreme" allows the Team to see how much cooling the engine needs in the warm sun. Then take that data into consideration for the final spec. The Teams need to make an overall balanced car that can sustain the engine and gearbox for multiple races.

I know Adrian is genius but people need to start giving the Merc design team more credit, they have been whopping Red Bulls bum for the best part of a decade.

Fair play to them. I hope it does work. This what F1 is about. Pushing the design envelope within the regs. How it plays in traffic and in race situations will be interesting to see. I hope they get to use it.

I guess mercedes team members were laughing their ass off when Redbull showed their fake 2022 car.

In other words, if the Mercedes is quick, RBR will protest. If it isn’t quick, then Christian will say he never had a problem with it.

You cant really take anything away from Mercedes when they come out with things like this. I would love to see other teams on par with the silver arrows fighting for wins each race but this just proves that the team is outstanding. Out of the box thinking is the essence of Formula 1.

Love the innovation. However, the car did not look spectacular on track. Heavy porpoising, unstable, and lots of locking up. Not so much focused on the time sheet as it is testing, but the car did not look comfortable. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. Loving these new regs.

If this actually provides them an insane level of performance advantage, my enginering curious mind would be tingling. The 'CCS' is definitely revolutionary.

What I like about this season, is that the cars look so different from each other. Too long have the cars all looked the same.

Red Bull came with shocking sidepods in Barcelona Mercedes: "Hold my wing mirrors"

Wow, seems like some are playing chess while others are playing checkers.

Fantastic video. How’d you make this so quickly? Thanks!

Nice video! What are these panels that they had on the car during the tests? Was it to collect data? Cheers!

Monaco 2023 they're officially ditching the concept

Would love to know more around how cornering speeds have been affected by the regulations

The side pods remind me of the F117 Stealth Fighter

Watching some of the testing footage, the porpoising almost looks worse than what I saw from Barcelona. They'll probably dial things in a bit more to reduce it, but I think we're going to see a season where different ideas work better at different tracks.

And mercedes do it again just when you think they have a simple but effective design they bring this work of art out amazing thinking outside the box

Very good information gives us a lot of information and no clickbait also love ur channel

I love how different all the cars look

The seems to be using the entrance to the underfloor for cooling as well. Or at least they seem to be putting the cooling guns under it.

Alpine had centreline cooling last season. Williams have centreline cooling this season. But when Merc do it, all the comments are about the 'genius' and 'innovation' at Merc.... All the teams know this is a possible solution.

Apperantly mercedes has been pushing the intercollegiaal inside the chassis every season but this season they went the furthest in they could. Do they were probably prepared for this for a couple years…

The Merc side impact design reminds me of the RedBull radiator inlet wing from last season.

reminds me of the 1990s f1 cars, or the mp4/4 with the small, low sidepods

I am worried Worried that Merc will take off into the distance yet again. Should I be though?

Side pods may be fine, cooling system could be an issue.

The biggest thing at the first few races at least, will be any aggressive closing off of overtaking, as was common last year. If either breaks those huge floor areas, then downforce is gone and the car arguably undrivable. That could result in some shock results.

Reminds me of the F17 stealth fighter jet

Since the teams can go that ultra narrow with the engine packaging now, the FIA needs to make the cars dramatically shorter. That obviously isn't a problem for the engine anymore, since they can just go wider with the engine packaging.

It will be a legal design as they have to have talks with the fia during the design process as they did with das, but like das it was legal until many of the teams made a protest against it. All we can do is wait for the first race of the season and hope other teams don't start crying that because they didn't think of it

Lets just hope many teams have a shot to win every weekend.

Looks like a nice ramp for a car to launch up in the event of wheel to sideless pod impact

As a Red Bull fan, as long as this is safe I think it should definitely be allowed. I hate the mentality of both FIA and teams trying to attack innovation rather than accepting progress and trying to work on their own versions or leapfrog it. Merc have made an incredible step forwards, both from the power unit and from the packaging, and frankly that is exactly what the sport is about and what it has been missing. Nobody complained about the Red Bull inlet, why are the clever Merc sidepods now an issue?

If the FIA and the teams are worried about "the spirit of the regulations" then make F1 a spec series so there is no question on how to interpret the technical regulations.

Very attractive shaping. So pretty.

It'll be interesting to see how the car performs if it has a collision with another car and bits of that intricate bodywork come flying off.

Considering that 3 other teams are Mercedes clients now, I imagine it would be impossible to get this majority of 8 teams protesting.

I'd like to know how well it will keep their engine cool. How well this design fairs in traffic. Their design choices have always struggled in traffic. I have a feeling it probably doesn't cool the engine very well and probably does follow well either. It's more designed to be a front runner.

Nice successor to the Rial ARC1.

Even with the budget cap they were able to develop 2 different concept.

Horner: “ThEy’Re ChEaHtInG”

Horner and Red Bull are first to complain... The World: *SHOCKER!!!*

at the presentation i thought the merc looks slow af but now without the sidepods it looks fast af o.o

If you have people complaining then you know that you have something good. The first test was all about making sure the engine and other systems work , second test making sure the aero works, first race watch out

Ferrari already made a statement saying they tried this design in the simulator and it gave no benefit. They might be extreme sidepods, doesn’t mean they’re fast

*crosses fingers to overheat*

sidepod not smaller, just turned 90 degrees. Enabling change in bodyshape.

Why don’t other teams develop something, DRS like Sidepods switch. Enable them to control airflow within the side pods, on corners snd straights.

"Are they legal?" Doesn't matter, it's Mercedes, the FIA will make them legal.

Wow, you completely missed it, the problem isn't the side pods, it's how Merc separated the upper side impact spar and turned it into a mirror support. They took advantage of the FIA abandoning sde impact tests to do so.

The best for maximum porpoising effect!

@therace how do the cost rules apply if a rule change is made? For example if a team has a design that is legal when implemented, but then the rules are changed by the FIA do they take the financial hit from their budget to adapt to the change?

Well it is only the first day of the Bahrain test and who knows what Mercedes was focusing on but indication has so far not been given that the visual revolutionariness of the revised car has produced a step-up in performance. Actually, it appeared as if the slimline sidepod W13 is even a step backwards from the car that was trialed in Barcelona. That porpoising for example. Let's see how it all will end but I personally would not be surprised to see a return to the Barcelona version of the car, or even yet a third one unveiled for the first race next week!

They seem to be really struggling with the porpoising today but I’m sure it’ll be ironed out

The problem of having smaller air intake for cooling got two problems, one being behind another car that you can't pass will increase your temperature. Also when you have a safety car at slow speed for three laps will send the temp way up. But only time will tell.

Those look small AF. But i worry about heating issues. Remember how Merc' tend to struggle during hotter venues? I don't think they struggle with it as badly since the 2021 spec PU and onward, but this certainly won't help.

Can someone please explain how this incredible new design can cope with the required heat rejection of a 1000hp powertrain? I understand that the water radiators will require an optimum surface area to do the job via the cold-air intake/s, but this also requires a larger and minimally restricted exit volume to achieve the required cooling/pressure drop across the cooler matrix. I also understand that 'saddle' cooler systems are used and mounted higher up, but how is this possible within the tiny volumes that exist between the chassis tub and powertrain volumes? (PS, Merc has also run the car in this hot-test with the upper cooling exits masked off, without the car rolling to a stop in a huge ball of steam!!!). Are they running the engine at (previously unseen) extremely high temps? Also! Is this design cooling model based on LEADING the races? We will remember the cooling issues Merc had when they had to follow! Thanks in anticipation..

This is the same team that came up with the *"DAS"* system remember that? I'm not surprised at all. You have dozens of engineers working 20 hours a day on that team desperate to find an edge. Why would this surprise anyone? PURE innovation !

I am guessing that the top aero that is attached to the side mirror completes the width requirement and that the sidepod air inlet is the minimum required size. I am assuming that the FIA expected the top width aero above would be connected to the bulge at the bottom of the sidepod but this is maybe not explicit in the rules. So the sidepod is therefore smaller with the bottom bulge and mirror wing meeting the edges of the legality box. This is my guess.

for sure the other top teams have already in works and wind tunnel a 'sidepod-delete' to be installed ASAP.....it will for sure reduce drag dramatically and be good for top speed...

It was not even half an hour into the testing and Netflix Karen Horner has already started talking about the "spirit of the rules" and legality. The audacity of that man!

There's no way teams powered by a merc engine are going to vote for a change in regs. If it's legal - and I suspect it is - then Merc have stolen a march other teams will need to accept and copy, if they can...

Where is link to the livehub mentioned in video?

It doesn’t really look to have much impact though yet? GR was really struggling to nail the breaking points.

All I can see is a major safety issue - especially racing wheel to wheel at high speed... Any car along side this mercedes runs the risk of being flipped over if the other cars leading wheel mounts that lower floor at the side of the car. The angles leading up from the floor are a perfect ramp that would see a competing car launched into the air. One of the main functions of sidepods was to stop this very thing if contact happened during racing. I think its very dangerous for other drivers but hey what do I know...

I thought mirrors weren't allowed to be aero devices anymore but they're on wings and have little vertical winglets underneath lol. Very cool design let's see what it does for them

A major disadvantage of the Mercedes is that the opening is biased lower to the ground. That would make it susceptible in my humble opinion to ingesting debris and possibly more dirty air.

I just want to say "THANK YOU for the Video " now that every ones said thank you put it on !!!

it looks like it has melted because of the warmer weather in Bahrain... (if it is hot... else... someone just heated it up... i guess...)

From my point of view it’s not a matter of sidepots, my concerns are focused on the wings where the rearview mirrors are set. That’s for me it’s illegal, like it was for the same solution brought by Ferrari back in 2019.

It's very strange looking. Definitely curious to see how fast it is. Side pods are obviously an area for big development this season

THE RACE is the single best subscription I’ve done in like 2 years

At this point, Mercedes could change the color of a button on their steering wheel and Horner would protest it and call it illegal.

Every one: omg redbulls car looks amazing That side pod design is incredible Mercedes: who needs side pods 🤣

As a performance tool they have gone radical. Some areas will be compromised more than usual, now they will evaluate those areas, bleed off performance should they need to and balance the car for the optimal iteration of the concept. Be interesting to see how it changes through the year in different temperature environments and in clean and dirty air. Those two elements are more likely to create fundamental differences.

I don't think that should be allowed as the upper side impact spur structure is not only unsupported but also exposed and dangerous as it would spear into the opposing driver in case of an uncontrollable side impact to the W13... the sidepods serves not only to provide cooling but to provide added structural support and protection to the sides of the driver... Merc is compromising the safety of Lewis & George...

Just saw some footage amd looks like Mercedes is still having porpoising issues despite these 'updates'.

"Horner voicing concern" really! "not in the spirit of the sport" already forgot the hollow victory and the hollow champion he has that stole a championship at the end of last season has he?

I knew merc would have something crazy in store didnt expect this

For me the thing is if works or not...yerah, could be illegal or could it be legal, but breaking a key feature since the Lotus 72 with the sidepods just show the potential of improvement of the engineers in f1