First picture: Mercedes’ revised sidepods and floor for Belgian Grand Prix

Mercedes have introduced a further notable revision to their W14 at the Belgian Grand Prix, again focusing on the design of its sidepods.

The team persevered with their unique ‘zero’ sidepod design until the Miami Grand Prix, but replaced it with a more conventional arrangement at the sixth round of the championship. The team has now revised the design again.

The latest version, which appeared for the first time in the pits at Spa-Francorchamps ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, features a more pronounced downward slope at the rear of the sidepods. The bodywork curves inwards underneath.

While more significant revisions are likely to be out of view underneath, the edges of the floor have also been more subtly modified.

Since Mercedes abandoned their original approach to the technical regulations F1 introduced last year they have followed a similar direction to that embraced by other teams. Others have achieved conspicuous success by doing so, notably McLaren, who have taken podium finishes in the last two races since introducing new bodywork much more similar to that used by Red Bull.

Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff said at the British Grand Prix their technical director James Allison and his team had looked closely at similar sidepod designs used by some of their rivals, but encountered difficulty making it work with their car to begin with.

“We had the sidepod concept and the bodywork in the tunnel very early on already to see which avenues it would open up and how much it would add to performance and the relative loss of the downforce, the way we measure it, was substantial,” said Wolff at Silverstone. “So it’s not something that we wanted to follow up earlier in the year.

“Will we change our design direction? I think we have a great group of aerodynamics led by James, and I’m sure that it will be a consideration seeing the step they made.”

Mercedes’ latest updates follows a revision to its front suspension introduced in Hungary which was intended to improve the flow of air into the floor.

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Mercedes’ old and new sidepods

Pictures: Mercedes’ new sidepods at Spa

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