Formula 1’s chief technical officer Pat Symonds says that the FIA overreacted to the porpoising concerns that were vocalised early on in 2022.
Amid the introduction of new technical regulations, several teams found that their cars bounced at high speed.
The problem was particularly highlighted by Mercedes, who also started the year off the pace compared to front-runners Red Bull and Ferrari.
The FIA installed measures to combat the problem, including closer scrutiny of the planks and skids underneath the cars. It also formulated a metric that would define a limit for an acceptable level of vertical oscillation.
For 2023, the floor edges have been raised by 15mm while the diffuser throat height will be raised.
But Symonds says that he thinks the FIA went too far with its intervention.
“I think they overreacted a bit after Baku,” Symonds told Auto Motor Und Sport, referring to when Lewis Hamilton appeared to be in pain as he climbed out of his car post-race .
“In Baku, we saw the worst effects because a team tried something that didn’t work and then went public quite loudly.
“If they hadn’t intervened, the problems would have been solved. Most teams now understand how to control the bouncing.”
Porpoising was an unforeseen problem ahead of the 2022 season, despite it being present in the ground effect cars from decades ago.
“I have to admit that the problem was not on our radar, but we could have known,” Symonds added.
“We had the means to discover it in advance because we were working with dynamic simulations.
“I should have known too, because I used to work on ground effect cars. I had simply forgotten, [but] without a doubt, the bouncing changed things.
“The teams first had to solve this problem before they could work on their aerodynamics. Bouncing is not purely an aerodynamic problem. There’s also a lot of mechanics involved, for example suspension stiffness.”
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