The complexities contributing to F1’s current bouncing storm

"It just hits going through your spine! Find solutions to save us ending up with a cane at 30 years old."

Pierre Gasly was unequivocal after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The AlphaTauri driver, after enduring a torrid time bouncing around Baku’s streets, called on the FIA to step in and address on safety grounds an issue which has been hotly debated since before 2022 pre-season testing.

The governing body duly responded – but then ran into unexpected turbulence of a different kind. On this issue even Gasly’s peers weren’t united, let alone their teams. Thus began an off-track political saga which will define F1’s first season back running ground-effect aerodynamics – stemming from a phenomenon that bedevilled the previous ground-effect era.

Porpoising. Teams opting to run pre-testing filming days felt it first. The rears of their new machines were bouncing so badly at the end of straights some broke floor parts and had to stop. At Barcelona testing, Ferrari sent engineers to Haas to confirm it was happening there too.

Bouncing. Hopping. Bottoming out. Take your pick of descriptors (Mercedes has even tried to draw a semantic dividing line between porpoising, brought on by aerodynamic forces, and bouncing, which it defines as an issue related more to suspension stiffness). The problem was manifesting itself almost everywhere at first, although most squads have managed to dial it back so it only happens at maximum speeds at the end of straights.

It has taken Mercedes much longer to get there, and the W13 remains one of the most violent vertical oscillators. Ferrari’s race-winning F1-75 still bounces wildly, though seemingly to little performance detriment. 
But even with straight-line porpoising eradicated or within tolerable limits, many cars are still striking the ground mid-corner. Some just 
do it more than others…

Why the FIA had to act

Although porpoising had been flagged up as
 a potential problem when the 2022 rules were being finalised, there was little hard evidence in simulation to indicate how bad it would be. That’s believed to be because windtunnel fan speeds are capped at 50 metres per second for cost-control purposes. In the absence of
 a consensus among the teams, the matter
 was pushed aside.

Hamilton was helped from his car after severe porpoising in Baku

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

As the scale of the issue became obvious in pre-season testing the FIA allowed for minor car adaptations – such as on Alpine’s A522, in which rattling forces stemming from porpoising were causing engine issues. But as some teams found ways of mitigating the bouncing, this matter became inextricably bound up in the politics of guarding competitive advantage. Baku provided the tipping point which moved the FIA to act.

The high-speed Azerbaijan street track was the worst event for the drivers – even at teams which had quickly solved the end-of-straight issue,
 such as Haas and AlphaTauri. McLaren too – although Daniel Ricciardo’s bouncing, which
 he likened to “being professionally dribbled by [NBA player] Stephen Curry”, was later put
down to a component breakage.

The track’s long top-speed zones fully compressed suspensions and that, added to 
the stiffer and lower ride heights ground effect cars require to be fast, as well as the 18-inch Pirellis offering less flexibility than their predecessors, meant the energy transferred to the drivers’ bodies exceeded that at other venues visited so far. At Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton estimated “you’re experiencing 10Gs on the bounce on a bump”.

There are suggestions some teams are employing split skid blocks which have a section that moves up inside the floor when the car strikes a bump, ensuring the block’s depth remains within legal limits when measured

“The FIA has decided to intervene following consultation with its doctors in the interests of safety of the drivers,” explained a statement from the governing body issued on the eve of the Canadian GP.

In an official technical directive the FIA outlined how it would monitor the extent to which each car was bouncing, where and for how long – via the accelerometers fitted to each car, usually in the cockpit. It also allowed the teams to fit a second metal ‘stay’ as a way of reducing the bottoming out experienced in Baku.

This was clearly not a full solution. At Silverstone the FIA released a draft update to the technical directive, allowing for the teams to provide feedback and confirming any rule changes wouldn’t come into play until the French GP. It also established the Aerodynamic Oscillation Metric (AOM) the teams will eventually have to operate within.

The AOM is “a representation of the energy associated with instances of large vertical acceleration and is expressed in J/kg/100km”. There is some wriggle room – the metric can be revised to factor in track lengths, and there will be a three-event tolerance threshold of 20% – but the FIA was clear that it would disqualify cars which persistently exceeded the AOM.

Many teams continued to see this as a competitive advantage issue not a safety matter, and were strongly disinclined to agree to changes, arguing the process had been rushed. Following an F1 commission meeting at the Austrian GP the implementation of the AOM was pushed back to the Belgian GP, after the summer break.

Some teams are believed to have deployed intricate and clever structural tricks that allow a degree of flexibility in their floors

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Flexi-floor intrigue: why some teams are fighting the solution

There is an underlying reason for this sudden and seemingly illogical outbreak of virulent pushback. This is that as far back as Canada, the FIA had an additional intention – to put under-car plank and skid block wear under greater scrutiny.

To prevent teams running their cars too close to the ground, with all the safety risks that entails, the FIA mandates a wooden plank along the bottom of the car floor which it measures, along with the skid blocks, for wear at the end of the race. GP Racing understands that to minimise both end-of-straight porpoising and mid-corner bouncing by running more aggressive front ride heights, some teams have deployed intricate and clever structural tricks that allow a degree of flexibility in their floors.

If the plank can flex away from the ground by more than the permitted 1mm it will wear less, and the flexibility of the floor will go undetected – but what about the skid blocks which enclose the areas where the plank-thickness measurements are taken? There are suggestions some teams are employing split skid blocks which have a section that moves up inside the floor when the car strikes a bump, ensuring the block’s depth remains within legal limits when measured.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said it was “a shocker” that rival squads had apparently
 been deploying flexi-floor tricks. McLaren
 also welcomed the FIA’s intervention. Once 
it comes into effect at Spa, the rule change
will require teams to submit their design
 data so the FIA can check it along with the physical cars in scrutineering.

But several squads – including Ferrari and Red Bull – were outraged by the timing of the pre-Montreal technical directive and have been pushing back ever since, leading to the delay in implementing the measures. Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto went as far as saying “that TD is not applicable”. Red Bull’s Christian Horner vented at it apparently being “overtly biased to sorting one team’s problems out” – a glaringly obvious reference to Mercedes which followed the Austrian GP team principals’ meeting, at which tempers flared while Netflix cameras rolled….

Horner remains convinced Mercedes is receiving preferential treatment, a belief
 which dates back to pre-season testing when Mercedes was permitted to run thin metal floor stays which weren’t allowed in the original 2022 regulations. It was suggested such an arrangement wouldn’t be race legal, until the FIA subsequently decided in Bahrain the stays could, well, stay. But this annoyed teams other than 
Red Bull: Alpine for instance, had gone to the expense of designing a stronger floor, a complex business given the challenges of hitting the minimum weight limit this year.

The two teams locked in battle for the 2022 championship are united in objecting to the FIA’s intervention – albeit for different reasons. Mercedes, which acknowledges it has had the worst experience with the various bouncing phenomena but claims to be acting for the good of the whole grid, wants something done. The rest have generally kept more of a watching brief. 

Team bosses have been at loggerheads over the FIA's intervention

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

Ferrari is massively concerned the upcoming changes will impact its performance in the battle against Red Bull. Its car still bounces badly but is fast – so Ferrari fears having to make set-up changes that will cost it speed if the AOM dictates it must. Binotto also acknowledged in Austria that at his squad “there will be some changes” regarding the new flexi-floor tests, and he welcomed the additional five weeks to get ready.

It’s all very F1. An apparently foreseeable problem that the teams are divided on because of their own self-interest, all of which is aimed at being eliminated with 2023 rule updates and therefore may have a short outrage shelf life.
The risk is that the teams, naturally, will find ways to get around any regulation changes

Red Bull’s position is that of the three teams central to this saga, its bouncing problem is the least severe and so it doesn’t want to potentially have to change to address other people’s problems. Max Verstappen therefore railed against the idea of mid-season rule changes in Canada. And at Silverstone, where the flexi-floor quarrel took off, Horner argued that set-ups being “dictated by FIA directives” was
“a dangerous avenue to go down”.

Is this just a Mercedes problem?

While the FIA acted after Baku, it’s important to note Mercedes’ George Russell was complaining about back and chest pain at Imola, round four. It’s morally right driver health takes priority, but the whole mess raises questions. Ferrari and Red Bull have a point that if only one team is really being impacted – Mercedes itself says it would have been outside the AOM calculation in Baku – perhaps the FIA should focus on that car alone.

But this ignores the serious pain drivers across the grid have felt on the bumpiest courses. Some of these are behind us but, while Singapore is 2022’s only remaining street track, other circuits such as Austin’s are also very uneven.

It’s all very F1. An apparently foreseeable problem that the teams are divided on because of their own self-interest, all of which is aimed at being eliminated with 2023 rule updates and therefore may have a short outrage shelf life.
 The risk is that the teams, naturally, will find ways to get around any regulation changes.

So the FIA is right to step in. But this salvation is tricky and complex and, if it was preventable before, will it be this time? Puzzling, petty, political. Some would argue the whole storm is also F1 at its most interesting.

The debate over porpoising is far from over

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images