The political implications of F1’s porpoising problem

Despite all of Formula 1’s high-tech windtunnel and CFD technology, plus the most brilliant of engineering brains, the pitlane was caught on the hop last week by the return of the porpoising phenomenon.

While much of the talk in the build-up to the running of the new 2022 ground effect machinery had been about super stiff setups and flexi-floors to try and better seal the under car Venturi tunnels, no one had openly predicted the potential risk of cars bouncing their way down the straights.

The first anyone suspected there could be a problem was during shakedowns. But then the worry was of it being an individual team problem rather than something endemic to 2022 machinery.

F1 stalwart Alan Permane said in Barcelona that Alpine’s alarm bells went off when its car experienced the porpoising on its filming day ahead of the test.

But worries that it was alone in facing dramas were slightly alleviated when Ferrari’s F1-75 soon bounced its way down the straight too.

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“I think it has caught everyone by surprise,” he said. “It sort of was doing it on our filming day. And then you hear the Ferrari going down at the same time, and they were almost worse than us.”

Over the three days of the Barcelona test, it became clear that some teams (like McLaren) were much more on top of the porpoising situation than others; and that potentially could prove critical in setting out the early season performance order.

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Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL36

Photo by: Alessio Morgese

For if a team has a car that is not suffering from porpoising, then it could operate at a more optimum ride height for better lap time – and without the downside of leaving its driver with blurred vision or a headache.

Any rivals exposed to the problem would face a dilemma; sacrifice lap time by raising the ride height or go for performance and make things really difficult for the drivers?

As Permane said: “If you say, we can stop it but you are going to go half a second slower, I don't think anyone's going to put their hand up and say, ‘we'll do that, we'll make the aerodynamic changes to stop it porpoising’.”

“It has the potential to be a real safety concern if it gets out of control. Obviously, if you're flat-out down the straight and it starts to happen, you don't want to back off in a race scenario" George Russell

But even with lap time on the table, it would be impossible to put drivers through some of the most extreme porpoising that was on display at times over the Barcelona test week.

Some level of compromise would need to be made for driver comfort, and that could then lead to a two tiered F1 early in the campaign - with those teams not troubled by it running at the front with the optimum setup, and those facing difficulties a few tenths back while they chased a more permanent cure.

The reality of F1 though is that teams do not willingly roll over and simply give up a few tenths of performance without a fight.

If one or two big players found themselves dumped into the chasing pack and forced to see rivals romping away into the distance over the first handful of 2022 races, you can be sure the fun and games would begin on the political front to try and level things up.

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Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The aim would be to force the FIA to step in and impose rule changes to ensure that the porpoising problem disappeared and all teams could run the cars as they wanted.

Such a move (potentially through imposing floor changes) could be done unilaterally if a team convinced the FIA that there was a safety issue with the way the current rules allowed cars to porpoise.

Article 1.2.2 of F1’s 2022 Technical Regulations state: “Any changes made by the FIA for safety reasons may come into effect without notice or delay.”

Indeed, while a few drivers just said the porpoising was an annoyance more than anything else, we have had the first mutterings of there being a safety issue at stake.

Mercedes’ George Russell, whose car suffered quite badly from the phenomenon and was fitted with temporary floor stays to minimise the effect on the final day, suggested that the situation was not good.

“It has the potential to be a real safety concern if it gets out of control,” he said. “And obviously, if you're flat-out down the straight and it starts to happen, you don't want to back off in a race scenario.”

While Russell’s comments are clearly based on his genuine feeling, it is inevitable that if a top team’s drivers knew there was no way their team could cure the porpoising without losing a good chunk of time, then they would be more than happy to play-up the safety card in public and try to force the FIA to respond.

Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing, Helmut Marko, Consultant, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

However, the safety card may not need to be called, because under F1’s new governance structure, rules can be changed immediately without the need to convince the FIA of a safety problem.

Instead, chasing what is commonly called a ‘super majority’, it takes support from eight teams, as well as the FIA and FOM, to get a rule change pushed through for the current season.

So if a scenario was to unfold where, for example, one or two teams were clear in front because they were not compromised by porpoising, the door could be open for their rivals to try to shut them down.

There is a remote danger of the system potentially being used for something that was never foreseen in the first place; of hurting a team for simply doing a better job with the rules as they stand

A potential change of rules, to help the other nine or eight teams who were struggling to overcome the issue, could be pushed through on many different grounds – but the ultimate aim would be the same: haul back the teams that got it right.

Such a move to shut down those cars would go completely against the original intention of the super majority rule.

The idea behind ditching unanimity was that it would prevent the kind of scenario like happened with double diffusers in 2009, when BrawnGP got a head start on rivals and utterly dominated the start of the campaign.

As well as being a mechanism to act on rule exploitation, the super majority was also believed to act as a deterrent for teams to ensure they were also crystal clear with the FIA about any potentially controversial areas of their cars.

Nikita Mazepin, Haas VF-22, Alex Albon, Williams FW44

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

As Ross Brawn said recently: “The governance has not just changed in order to be able to change the rules at short notice, the governance has changed because teams know you can change the rules at short notice.

“So they're far more likely to want to be comfortable with their ideas or concepts before they release them. It's a circular thing. If you know that eight teams and the FIA and F1, could stop you doing something if they feel is wrong, then you're a bit more circumspect in doing it.

“I think the governance is something which also gives another layer of protection.”

But now there is a remote danger of the system potentially being used for something that was never foreseen in the first place; of hurting a team for simply doing a better job with the rules as they stand.

And it would be especially unfair if some teams find that an advantage they have earned from getting their cars right – rather than doing anything especially trick – was wiped away because others got it wrong.

Critical for the situation developing now will be what happens in the Bahrain test. Teams were caught on the hop in Spain by porpoising and did their best to dial things out with the tools they had available over such a short time span.

But if efforts over the next week at factories to address it deliver no improvement in the situation in Bahrain – and the untroubled teams like McLaren look like they are heading into the season in much better shape – don’t expect their rivals to sit back and simply accept it.

The fight for F1 glory will then become as intense off-track as on it.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images