2023 cars - what if they porpoise?

[mendis]

Therefore I do expect all teams to be faster than last year. Teams will have more downforce than last year.

Honest question here. If all teams gain more downforce and if the porpoising phenomenon returns to haunt a lower midfield team like Haas or Alpha Tauri or even Williams, will there be immediate action by FIA to prevent porpoising, regardless if the top 3 teams have it or not? On the grounds of safety ofcourse.

[chrisc90]

Therefore I do expect all teams to be faster than last year. Teams will have more downforce than last year.

Honest question here. If all teams gain more downforce and if the porpoising phenomenon returns to haunt a lower midfield team like Haas or Alpha Tauri or even Williams, will there be immediate action by FIA to prevent porpoising, regardless if the top 3 teams have it or not? On the grounds of safety ofcourse.

Of course there wont be.

The simple solution was the raise the car up to stop the bouncing. Everyone knows this on the grid. It was just 1 team twisting because they couldnt get control of the bouncing whilst remaining competitive.

[AR3-GP]

Therefore I do expect all teams to be faster than last year. Teams will have more downforce than last year.

Honest question here. If all teams gain more downforce and if the porpoising phenomenon returns to haunt a lower midfield team like Haas or Alpha Tauri or even Williams, will there be immediate action by FIA to prevent porpoising, regardless if the top 3 teams have it or not? On the grounds of safety ofcourse.

If you think the regs will be changed again on behalf of back markers struggling with porpoising this season, I have a bridge to sell you. I made it out of gold.

[PhillipM]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

[AR3-GP]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

The floor edges will still be on the ground because of flexing.

[mendis]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

F1 cars have run the floor close to the ground for decades. It was never an issue. Porpoising, regardless of the root, should be stopped by FIA to ensure driver safety, like they did for this year. If it requires regulations change, then so be it. Even last year, some teams had no porpoising and they said like you said, the teams suffering should raise the car, but FIA changed regulations. Why not again?

[Cs98]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

"was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that". What a convoluted way to say it was to reduce porpoising. If porpoising remains a problem then they will naturally have to change the rules again if they want to maintain credibility re safety. The safety concern hasn't disappeared because we lifted the floor edge a little. That intervention is only useful if it actually solves the problem.

"If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out". This argument held just as much water last season. Clearly there were engineering solutions to eliminate porpoising, most teams found them, some didn't and resorted to more political avenues of solving the problem.

[Henk_v]

The porpoising metric is there. The raising of the floor and venturi tunnels was the FIA doubling down on an obsolete idea.

[PhillipM]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

"was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that". What a convoluted way to say it was to reduce porpoising. If porpoising remains a problem then they will naturally have to change the rules again if they want to maintain credibility re safety. The safety concern hasn't disappeared because we lifted the floor edge a little. That intervention is only useful if it actually solves the problem.

Stopping the teams running the floor edge on the ground was to prevent sudden massive changes in downforce if contact was lost, over kerbs, or spinning, etc. Which is a major safety problem and we've seen how that causes issue with cars and crashes before. Porpoising was a indicator of that so you stop it now before teams start to run on the ragged edge with developments.

I love all these people quoting me that claim floor edges ran close to the ground before and don't even know we had rules specifically forbidding devices that bridged the gap from the floor to the ground under previous regs, along with far more rake - and yet last year we had skates appearing to let teams deliberately run the edges along the ground because of the rule change and regulators not realising they had created a box that allowed it.
They're still going to be close to the floor but now the downforce loss in yaw will be much more gradual because of the raised edge feeding air in. You don't have the risk of a car suddenly just snapping into a spin or suddenly going airborne from a sausage kerb strike causing complete downforce loss.

Skirts were banned for a reason. The floor edge is raised for a reason. That reason isn't to magically hobble RB like most people here seem to be up in arms about. It's not to 'help out the other teams' with porpoising - hell the TD last year made the RB faster because it slowed down Ferrari, etc. Frankly the people I talked at at Mclaren the past couple of weeks think it'll be make RB faster which is why they've gone down the skate route too.

[AR3-GP]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

"was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that". What a convoluted way to say it was to reduce porpoising. If porpoising remains a problem then they will naturally have to change the rules again if they want to maintain credibility re safety. The safety concern hasn't disappeared because we lifted the floor edge a little. That intervention is only useful if it actually solves the problem.

Stopping the teams running the floor edge on the ground was to prevent sudden massive changes in downforce if contact was lost, over kerbs, or spinning, etc. Which is a major safety problem and we've seen how that causes issue with cars and crashes before. Porpoising was a indicator of that so you stop it now before teams start to run on the ragged edge with developments.

I love all these people quoting me that claim floor edges ran close to the ground before and don't even know we had rules specifically forbidding devices that bridged the gap from the floor to the ground under previous regs, along with far more rake - and yet last year we had skates appearing to let teams deliberately run the edges along the ground because of the rule change and regulators not realising they had created a box that allowed it.
They're still going to be close to the floor but now the downforce loss in yaw will be much more gradual because of the raised edge feeding air in. You don't have the risk of a car suddenly just snapping into a spin or suddenly going airborne from a sausage kerb strike causing complete downforce loss.

Skirts were banned for a reason. The floor edge is raised for a reason. That reason isn't to magically hobble RB like most people here seem to be up in arms about. It's not to 'help out the other teams' with porpoising - hell the TD last year made the RB faster because it slowed down Ferrari, etc. Frankly the people I talked at at Mclaren the past couple of weeks think it'll be make RB faster which is why they've gone down the skate route too.

Thanks for the comment. Very insightful.

[organic]

They changed the diffuser throat height too, remember!

[Cs98]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

"was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that". What a convoluted way to say it was to reduce porpoising. If porpoising remains a problem then they will naturally have to change the rules again if they want to maintain credibility re safety. The safety concern hasn't disappeared because we lifted the floor edge a little. That intervention is only useful if it actually solves the problem.

Stopping the teams running the floor edge on the ground was to prevent sudden massive changes in downforce if contact was lost, over kerbs, or spinning, etc. Which is a major safety problem and we've seen how that causes issue with cars and crashes before. Porpoising was a indicator of that so you stop it now before teams start to run on the ragged edge with developments.

I love all these people quoting me that claim floor edges ran close to the ground before and don't even know we had rules specifically forbidding devices that bridged the gap from the floor to the ground under previous regs, along with far more rake - and yet last year we had skates appearing to let teams deliberately run the edges along the ground because of the rule change and regulators not realising they had created a box that allowed it.
They're still going to be close to the floor but now the downforce loss in yaw will be much more gradual because of the raised edge feeding air in. You don't have the risk of a car suddenly just snapping into a spin or suddenly going airborne from a sausage kerb strike causing complete downforce loss.

Skirts were banned for a reason. The floor edge is raised for a reason. That reason isn't to magically hobble RB like most people here seem to be up in arms about. It's not to 'help out the other teams' with porpoising - hell the TD last year made the RB faster because it slowed down Ferrari, etc. Frankly the people I talked at at Mclaren the past couple of weeks think it'll be make RB faster which is why they've gone down the skate route too.

The changes were clearly described as remedies for porpoising which were brought about from the floor stalling when the floor edge got too close to the ground under high loads. What you describe in the corners was an issue during the skirt era, but was not a primary issue last season. We did not suffer from people suddenly spinning off due to massive loss of downforce in corners, we suffered from porpoising.

I didn’t bring up RB and never suggested it would directly harm them. Though this change is clearly not being brought about to help them, they didn't need the help and got on with solving the issue themselves (as you are now suggesting everyone needs to do if this reg change fails). The only reason the FIA need to change the rules again if porpoising remains is because that would be the logically consistent thing to do. They brought the changes about to deal with the safety concerns from porpoising, if those concerns remain then they will need to change the rules again.

[chrisc90]

The only reason the FIA need to change the rules again if porpoising remains is because that would be the logically consistent thing to do. They brought the changes about to deal with the safety concerns from porpoising, if those concerns remain then they will need to change the rules again.

Exactly this. When I first asked this question, this is what I was hoping to hear.

The bouncing can easily be solved by the teams though. So it isnt the ruleset that is the problem.

We saw teams with little or no bouncing in 2022, so the porpoising can be solved within the scope of the ruleset, teams just chose not to and put driver 'safety' at risk.

What happened to the metric used to measure the bouncing? Funny how it was there, then a couple races later it got took away.

[Stu]

New thread, created to open up this discussion and remove it from a car specific thread

[organic]

No, the lifting of the floor edge was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that. If teams still have porpoising that will be up to them to sort out. Or the FIA will do the same as last year and make them run within limits if they think it's a risk to the drivers.

"was to stop teams running the floor edge along the ground and the safety concerns that came with that". What a convoluted way to say it was to reduce porpoising. If porpoising remains a problem then they will naturally have to change the rules again if they want to maintain credibility re safety. The safety concern hasn't disappeared because we lifted the floor edge a little. That intervention is only useful if it actually solves the problem.

Stopping the teams running the floor edge on the ground was to prevent sudden massive changes in downforce if contact was lost, over kerbs, or spinning, etc. Which is a major safety problem and we've seen how that causes issue with cars and crashes before. Porpoising was a indicator of that so you stop it now before teams start to run on the ragged edge with developments.

I love all these people quoting me that claim floor edges ran close to the ground before and don't even know we had rules specifically forbidding devices that bridged the gap from the floor to the ground under previous regs, along with far more rake - and yet last year we had skates appearing to let teams deliberately run the edges along the ground because of the rule change and regulators not realising they had created a box that allowed it.
They're still going to be close to the floor but now the downforce loss in yaw will be much more gradual because of the raised edge feeding air in. You don't have the risk of a car suddenly just snapping into a spin or suddenly going airborne from a sausage kerb strike causing complete downforce loss.

Skirts were banned for a reason. The floor edge is raised for a reason. That reason isn't to magically hobble RB like most people here seem to be up in arms about. It's not to 'help out the other teams' with porpoising - hell the TD last year made the RB faster because it slowed down Ferrari, etc. Frankly the people I talked at at Mclaren the past couple of weeks think it'll be make RB faster which is why they've gone down the skate route too.

Didn't they change the diffuser throat height at the same time?

Is that the regulation change that will supposedly prevent porpoising?