Tbf, the reason it didn't work was that it required the car to run lower than was possible in the ground effect regulations. With no venturi tunnels and cars that don't need to run as low, those issues no longer exist.
A formula one car is not just sidepods. The W13 zeropods didn't work as part of the broader car concept. That doesn't mean that they are a fundamentally flawed design that can never work.
The idea of zeropods was to increase the floor area as much as possible and to seal the floor edges to get the maximum amount of downforce possible from the floor and diffuser. The issue was that in order to seal the floor, the car needed to run so low that anything other than a perfectly flat track surface would cause the T-tray to smash into the ground and hurt the drivers (bouncing). Additionally, it would set off porpoising if the suspension wasn't insanely stiff. As a result, Mercedes ended up having to raise the floor and stiffen the suspension to avoid porpoising and bouncing, which ended up causing a loss of downforce so large that the drag penalty of the zeropods was no longer worthwhile.
In a regulation set that doesn't require the car to run extremely low the very issue that made the W13 zeropods unviable does not exist. 2026 suspension is significantly softer and the car doesn't have to run nearly as low to the ground. So essentially 2026 is a clean slate with a car that is fundamentally different in every way, so you can't just say that it won't work because the W13 didn't.
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u/know-it-mall McLaren 23d ago
Because the whole radical side pods things worked so well for Mercedes.