Mercedes Keeps a Close Eye on F1 Rivals Red Bull’s Acclaimed Sidepod Designs

The new regulations have brought in new designs for the 2022 season. The F1 teams have presented their 2022 cars with their understanding of the new regulations. But it looks like Red Bull have designed the most talked-about car on the grid for the season. Their rear suspensions and side pods have caught the eyes of many on the grid, including, and especially, their rival Mercedes.

Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott mentioned the German team had noticed the unique side pods of Red Bull. He revealed they would keep a close eye on the design of their rivals throughout the season.

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It looks interesting, we’ll go and have a think about it: Mercedes technical head

As reported by GPBlog, Elliot mentioned that it is the most visually eye-catching design from any team. But he recognized that as regulations are new, there would be a lot of interpretations of the cars throughout the season.

“But I think the reality is that the cars will evolve a lot. I guess the most visually different thing is the sidepod that Red Bull has come up with. It looks interesting. We’ll go and have a think about it,” said Mercedes technical director.

He even gave his opinion on the new issue that the teams encountered at Pre-Season testing in Barcelona called Porpoising. “It’s a problem we’re all facing. The reality is we’ve just got to learn as quickly as we can.

We’re doing as much testing as we can here [in Barcelona], and we’ll do a lot of simulation work back at the factory. It will be about how we either solve that or how we deal with it and mitigate it in the first races,” said Elliot.

It would be interesting to see if there are any more designs on the new cars that we’ll see in the official pre-season testing in Bahrain. But the sidepods by the Austrian team have certainly got the rest of the grid off guard. Let’s see if Mercedes can bring in an interesting design of their own in the first race of the season.

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