Once again, following a rule change for the new season, Formula 1 teams will need to find time to catch up on the performance they previously achieved. According to FIA technical director Nikolas Tombazis, the new rules for the underbody for the 2023 season cost around half a second.
In the course of the problems with porpoising, the FIA decided to make some adjustments to the regulations. On the one hand, a metric was introduced during the past season to limit aerodynamic oscillations, on the other hand changes were made to the technical regulations.
An important point was the raising of the underbody edges by 15 millimeters. This is to discourage teams from gluing their cars so close to the tarmac that the porpoising phenomenon occurs again.
Tombazis is convinced that the rule changes were important and will serve their purpose: “I have no doubt that we did the right thing,” he said. “We tried to find a pragmatic, short-term and medium-term solution.” Although she will not be able to completely stop porpoising, “but it will be one step less.”
However, the teams will not lose “too much” downforce, as Tombazis continues: “I would have thought that they would lose around 15 to 20 points of downforce, which is maybe half a second, or something like that. Maybe. But the development will be probably surpass that again.”
The bouncing of the cars caught many off guard before the Formula 1 season. Even the teams had admitted that they weren’t very aware of the problem, but the FIA was also surprised by the occurrence of the phenomenon.
“I had some smug comments from some people in our history department and people from before and so on. But in reality, no one had predicted that correctly,” Tombazis said.
“But after the problem was somewhat understood, we took some measures and in the meantime the teams have also learned a lot about it. I think overall there has clearly been a massive , resulting in massive change.”
But Tombazis goes on to emphasize that it would still be wrong to consider the topic of porpoising to be over: “I think that the changes will naturally reduce it,” he says. “But whether we’ve strayed far enough from the border, or whether we’ll occasionally dip into it, we’ll have to wait and see.”