Symonds reported that know-how derived from the aerospace field has served Mercedes to package an ultra-effective cooling process that in switch has enabled it to develop the slender sidepod arrangement unveiled on the initial day of the Bahrain test.
Symonds, who was the key architect of the 2022 rules, admitted that he hadn’t expected these types of a extraordinary interpretation of the principles.
“This is a very novel method,” he stated in an interview with F1 TV’s Ted Kravitz.
“I like to see novel interpretations. I have to say it can be not one particular that I would anticipated to see. And I’m nonetheless genuinely impressed at how they are acquiring the air by means of to neat the motor vehicle, but they naturally are.
“And I think it will have acquired their rivals form of going back again to the rulebook with their purple pencil, and observing just what they’ve carried out.”
Symonds admitted that when his group of engineers wrote the principles and created a entire-sizing design of the 2022 auto they predicted a requirement for larger radiator inlets.
“I guess it was just a minor little bit a lot more radical than we assumed,” he reported.
“As we developed the aerodynamics of this established of laws, of course, we seemed at lots of things, not just downforce generating, but we had to glance at brake cooling, had to seem at tyre heating. And specifically, we experienced to search at motor cooling.
“And we were utilizing a greater inlet than that [on the W13] to get the cooling. I think on the Mercedes, they have a handful of very little tricks in there that enable them in this regard.
“So for instance the intercooler, is a extremely, very neat unit, it really is a drinking water/air intercooler, which of class Mercedes have experienced for a very little while, but I feel this is a minor little bit different.
“And that is why they can actually shrink wrap this car a small bit additional than most of the some others can.”

George Russell, Mercedes W13
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Photos
Expanding on what Mercedes had accomplished, he extra: “The intercooler that I was talking about, I consider, arrives from Response Engines in Oxfordshire, the men and women who are carrying out this sort of air respiratory rocket motor, and the kind of spin-off from that has been this really extremely productive warmth exchanger technological innovation.
“And I consider which is aspect of the reason why they’ve been in a position to develop the automobile the way they have.”
Symonds pressured that all groups have honed their packaging to make sidepods as tiny as feasible.
“I believe a single of the traits we’re viewing, and it’s not distinct to these new rules, but we are observing that it really is really, very tough to commence to package every little thing into the facet pods.
“People think what is in the aspect pods, certainly it can be only the radiators, the warmth exchangers?
“But of training course, you can find a large amount far more, you can find a whole lot of electronics in there. I think some individuals are relocating that electronics into that keel place.”
The sidepods and cooling concept apart, Symonds proposed that very little else on the W13 experienced caught his eye.
“I believe the rest of it appears to be like dare I say fairly regular, if you can find these a thing as common. The front wing procedure, extremely significantly what we expected to see.
“Rear wing indeed, a tiny bit of adjust in camber in that yet again, which a ton of people today have adopted for this quite, extremely obvious sort of route to the decrease rear wing, the form of beam wing at the back again, which a good deal of people are making an attempt to do now.”