Pat Symonds, ex-F1 car designer and now Formula One’s technical director, recently revealed at the Autosport annual show he was surprised F1 missed the effect known as porpoising when designing the new cars for 2022.
The ‘ground effect’ principals were last seen on F1 cars between 1978 and 1982 before they were banned by the FIA the following season. However, it is well documented how Chapman in particular who developed the aero system, suffered from porpoising as did the cars of 2022.
Mercedes expiremnts in Baku forced FIA hand
“In Baku, we saw the worst effects because a team tried something that didn’t work and then went public quite vociferously. If people hadn’t intervened, the problems would have been solved as well. Most teams now understand how to control bouncing.”
Yet as Symonds acknowledges, the FIA were bounced into taking action as a result of one team in particular performing extreme experimentation with the cars setup.
“In Baku, we saw the worst effects because a team tried something that didn’t work and then went public quite vociferously. If people hadn’t intervened, the problems would have been solved as well. Most teams now understand how to control bouncing.”
“I think they [the FIA] overreacted a bit after Baku,” Symonds said to AMuS.
Regulation changes a knee jerk reaction by FIA
The FIA cannot change regulations unilaterally mid-way through a season or after the deadline for the following seasons rules to be finalised.
They did both because of Mercedes Baku performance. First was a change to made made in the way the floors were attached and complete by the Belgium GP. The second was in the 2023 regulations where the deadline for completion had passed.
The floors must be raised for 2023 by 15mm and the throat of the diffuser has been altered too. Yet by the end of the 2022 season, porpoising was no longer the world on everyone’s lips as even Mercedes had got on top of the issue.
Horner complains at unnecessary expense caused FIA
Christian Horner at the time argued this was an expensive knee jerk reaction from the FIA and speaking to AMuS he said:
“It’s a little bit strange, because obviously there was a big push to get all of this changed, and the changes came through around Spa last year.
“But by the end of the year, there was very little porpoising.”
“When asked if the rule changes would eliminate porpoising all together, the Red Bull boss replied, “I think we have to wait and see, the first snapshot will be the testing in Bahrain.”
“My argument at the time was will it not just get sorted out, which it did.
“So we’ve gone through quite a lot of expense, for all the teams in a big regulation change that probably wasn’t needed.”
FIA defend rule changes
The FIA’s new man running day to day Formula One affairs, Nikolas Tombazis, defends the FIA’s decision to force through regulation changes for 2023.
“I’ve got no doubt we did the right thing,” he said. “We tried to find a pragmatic, short-term solution and a medium-term solution.
“It won’t necessarily dissipate [porpoising] completely, but it will be a step less.”
New rules may hurt Mercedes more than Red Bull
The feeling at Red Bull is the changes demanded by Mercedes shouldn’t hurt them too much, though how it will affect the W14 challenger for 2023 is as yet unknown.
At the time Mercedes were grappling around in the dark in an attempt to solve their porpoising, so the proposed rule changes the FIA then adopted may well hurt Mercedes more than its rivals.
Red Bull certainly ran their RB18 further from the ground than Mercedes‘ W13 in 2022 and it would make sense they have less alterations to make than their Brackley based rivals.
