The sidepod design on the 2022 F1 vehicles is an unexpected feature that differentiates each team from the others. Every team often takes a slightly different strategy to this important element of the car, although in 2022, there are some pretty unusual ideas that may make viewers question what sidepods are indeed.
So, what are the sidepods on F1 cars? Sidepods are designed in F1 cars to direct air toward the engine to cool it, but they also have an aerodynamic function. The sidepods of the car have radiators built into them, and the air is drawn into them through the side apertures to cool the interior of the vehicle.
Although the sidepods are a crucial part of the F1 cars’ cooling systems, the systems themselves are quite intricate. However, the 2022 rule updates indicate that sidepods on F1 vehicles now serve a very significant aerodynamic purpose as well.
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What Does An F1 Sidepod Mean?
An F1 car’s sidepod is the protrusion in the body that extends in varied directions from where the car engine is located within the vehicle and is located on both sides of the driver. The vehicle’s sidepods direct airflow over the top and behind the vehicle, cooling the engine and other internal parts.
In Formula 1, sidepods have been used for many years. They have been observed in a wide range of dimensions and forms. But it’s been a while since we’ve seen a truly original sidepod shape. The sidepods have mostly stayed unchanged for the last 10 years or more.
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Most of the work done by a Formula 1 car’s sidepods goes toward cooling the engine. But the necessity for cooling extends beyond the engine alone, since the sidepods are advantageous for the intercooler, water cooling, and oil cooling, among other components.
What Functions Do Sidepods Have in Engine Cooling?
A vehicle’s sidepods can aid in cooling by channeling air towards the engine’s inner workings and radiators.
Similarly to the radiators in a typical road vehicle, these radiators require air to be channeled onto them in to cool the engine (and other similarly heated components). This funneling is done by sidepods.
Road vehicles have their radiators installed in such a way that they face directly backward behind the front grill on the hood of the vehicle. This ensures that the radiator is exposed to the maximum amount of cool air.
Note: Radiators serve as a point of contact between the air outside the radiator and the cooling fluid inside. A portion of the heat energy is absorbed by the coolant as it circulates around and inside the engine before returning through the radiators.
How Does A Car Radiator Function?
When a car is moving at a high speed, the cool air that flows over the radiator absorbs some of the energy that is contained within the radiator’s liquid. Additionally, the huge surface area of radiators enables a significant level of heat to be transferred from the warm coolant toward the cool air outside the engine.
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As a result, the coolant can continue to function and stay cold, maintaining the engine temperature in a desirable working range. The function of the radiator in an F1 car is identical to that of a radiator in a regular street vehicle.
How Do F1 Car Radiators Work?
Radiators cannot be placed on the “nose” of a Formula 1 car, though. This is where the front wing, which is aerodynamic and generates downforce, will be attached. Furthermore, the vehicle’s engine is located behind the driver, in the “trunk”.
The radiators are integrated into the sidepods since it is always preferable to have them as near to the engine as feasible.
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Complex bargeboards were once employed to direct air into the sidepods where it was utilized to cool the engine. Because teams are no longer permitted to utilize bargeboards, the frontal wing as well as the wings that cover the tires are now responsible for a portion of the funneling.
Note: Teams have been forced to modify their sidepods as a result, but contending with the hot air is yet an additional factor that has caused significant alterations to the sidepod designs.
Taking The Hot Air Out
However, despite the fact that it helps to cool the engine, the air coming into the sidepods rapidly becomes hot because of the extremely high temperature of the car engine. To keep the engine from overheating, that air must be “expelled” from the vehicle.
Similar to the exhaust of a typical road vehicle, the majority of such hot air is expelled out the back of the vehicle via the exhaust pipe.
Since the 2009 Formula One season, F1 vehicles only direct air toward the rear of the vehicle through the exhaust pipe.
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This is due to the sport’s recent ban on the use of huge gills, or “louvers,” as they are commonly known. The 2022 F1 regulations reinstated these “gills” or “louvers,” which are simply cooling slats on the sidepods.
How Do F1 Sidepod Cooling Slats Function?
The cooling slats on F1 sidepods aid in cooling the engine by allowing air to depart the interior of the vehicle before the exhaust, preventing it from having to pass through the exhaust system in its entirety to leave the vehicle at the back. For aerodynamic reasons, it is necessary to control this hot air.
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Due to the high kinetic energy of the hot air being expelled from these cooling slats, it will severely disturb the aerodynamics of the vehicle’s trunk if proper measures are not taken to direct it.
Note: The cooling slats’ hot air discharge runs the danger of obstructing the airflow over the back of the car.
The Beam Wing
The use of the beam wing at the rear of the car to produce downforce is, nevertheless, a major emphasis of the 2022 regulation amendments.
This beam wing helps force the back of the automobile into the pavement as well as push the soiled air over the car in front of it.
Due to this reason, controlling the hot air that emerges from the sidepods when teams apply cooling slats is a crucial component of the 2022 F1 car layouts.
The general form of the sidepods also differs significantly, with one variation featuring “scallops“.
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Why Do F1 Sidepods Have Scallops?
The scallops on the sidepods of Formula One cars are just portions of the sidepod that drop down to produce a depression in the sidepod; this mimics the form of a scallop. Such scooped-out areas have the function of rerouting airflow across the back of the car in multiple ways.
When Ferrari originally unveiled photos of its 2022 car, the scallops on the sidepods of F1 cars were the first to be seen under the new rules. The sidepods on the Ferrari were somewhat scooped out and twisted as they ran to the back of the vehicle.
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The airflow is directed inward into the beam wing using the scalloped sidepods. The automobile can use extra rear grip and stabilization since all the hot air is going to the beam wing, and the volume of hot, dirty air which gets in the way of the additional aerodynamic elements at the back of the car is kept to a minimum.
Scallops and Slats
The sidepod configuration chosen by the Ferrari designers features a scalloped-out transition area and an upward ramp where the sidepods integrate into the engine cover. It ramps down softly in its lower parts. It is equipped with cooling slats on the upper surface of the sidepods, just like the Aston Martin is.
The upward contour of the upper bodywork above the sidepod clearly implies that the radiators have been practically horizontally arranged, with the cooling tunnels flowing upward over the engine cam covers much like the Williams of the previous year.
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As a result, the sidepod shape is highly undercut beneath the tiny slat-like radiator inlet at the front, immediately merges with a flat side, and then heavily undercuts once more as it merges into the coke bottle part at the back.
Given that the new regulations have reduced wheelbases to a maximum of 3600mm (shorter than the shortest car from last year) and taken a significant amount of forwarding sidepod area up with floor venturi tunnels, it has been reevaluated as to what the best aerodynamic answer is for the cooling design and, consequently, the sidepod and engine cover shapes. There is therefore a lot of variety between teams.
Therefore, the sidepods of the F1 vehicles in 2022 include scallops and cooling slats. The undercut, however, is another important topic of discussion in relation to their shape.
What Do F1 Sidepod Undercuts Mean?
The term “undercut” refers to places of F1 sidepods where the sidepods have been cut out, typically underneath the radiator inlet or near the back of the sidepod. As a result, the contour of the sidepod is altered, becoming smaller as it approaches the car’s floor and appearing to have had its underside cut out.
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In the Formula 1 season of 2022, most teams employ an undercut sidepod. Of all the current vehicles, Mercedes features one of the most blatantly undercut sidepods, which simply means that there is a noticeable variation in the proportion of sidepod which has been “cut away” underneath. In essence, this creates a smaller area on the car’s floor.
How Does the Team Select the Design of a Sidepod?
Teams’ sidepod designs have a significant influence on the airflow over the car and the cooling of the internals. Teams must develop their own sidepod designs since they employ diverse engines, transmissions, frames, and other equipment, and because cooling demands and chassis proportions vary.
This necessitates that certain teams run bigger air openings on their sidepods, and as a result, we frequently observe different designs that are more curved or even more squared.
Based on the engine and other internal components, certain teams may choose not to employ cooling slats, whereas others might need them.
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To achieve optimal downforce and airflow management, the chassis specifications may also call for sidepods of varying shapes, widths, and general designs (like scalloped or undercut layouts).
As a result, different levels of sidepod undercutting can be seen, mostly based on how the remaining automobile is built.
Note: The sidepods of the 2022 F1 cars fluctuate significantly from front to rear in terms of both the general form and the degree of undercut that we can notice. The term “Coke bottle shape” is frequently used to describe this form.
What Does the Coke Bottle Shape Mean in Formula 1?
When viewed from the front, an F1 car resembles a coke bottle with the front wing acting as the base and the sidepods as the protrusion in the middle that slopes to the back to resemble the bottle’s shrinking to the cap.
You might hear the phrase “Coke bottle shape” a lot given the distinctive bodywork shapes we’re seeing on every 2022 Formula 1 grid car. When viewed from above, the engine compartment of a Formula 1 automobile will appear to be the broadest part of the vehicle due to the outward protrusion of the sidepods.
The car’s bodywork then curves inward toward the transmission and the crash framework in the back. This region of the car got its name from the way it narrows from wide to narrow, resembling a classic Coke bottle.
The fact that last year’s teams all used the same configuration meant that it wasn’t a major point of discussion while planning this year’s.
However, the regulations for 2022 have made it possible for teams to generate extremely varied designs for the sidepods of their cars.
This means that the shape of the sidepods themselves can vary widely from one team to the next, beginning with the air intakes at the front of the vehicle and continuing all the way to the back of the vehicle. This effectively ensures that all F1 teams’ cars have highly distinctive Coke bottle shapes!
Conclusion
On F1 cars, sidepods have two crucial functions. To cool the internal combustion engine and other interior parts, the first of them involves directing airflow into the radiators. The accurate regulation of airflow over the vehicle for aerodynamic purposes is the second function of F1 sidepods.
I hope you liked this article and that you have learned some new and interesting stuff.