FIA proposes 2023 rules changes to address “significant safety matter” of porpoising

2022 F1 season

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The FIA is pressing ahead with plans to address the ‘porpoising’ phenomenon some cars have experienced this year, despite some teams claiming it is no longer a problem.

Several drivers have complained about the severe bumping they have experienced in some races this year. However Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said last weekend porpoising “was not a subject in Silverstone, it has not been here a subject, in Austria, for [any] of us. I’m pretty sure it will not be in the next two races.”

But following a meeting of the FIA’s Formula 1 Technical Advisory Committee this week, the sport’s governing body said there will be no change to its upcoming directive, due for introduction at the Belgian Grand Prix, which is intended to begin addressing the problem.

“The FIA reaffirmed its strong commitment to reduce and hopefully eliminate the issue in the near term, as it is considered to be a significant safety matter,” said the FIA in a statement received by RaceFans.

“It is the responsibility and the prerogative of the FIA to intervene for safety matters, and the reason the regulations allow such measures to be taken is precisely to allow decisions to be taken without being influenced by the competitive position each team may find themselves in,” it added.

It noted that porpoising “has been seemingly reduced in the last few races” but pointed out those events “took place at circuits where the effect is expected to be lower than normal.”

“Races where this effect is expected again to be higher will take place in the coming months,” it added.

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From Spa, the skid blocks in the cars’ floors will be stiffened. The details of how they are measured for wear to assess their legality will also be clarified.

At the same race the FIA will introduce its metric which sets a limit on the vertical movement of the cars. Prior to that, teams will have the opportunity to examine their cars’ performance in line with the metric.

However the FIA described the Spa changes as “short-term measures” which “are not considered necessarily to be the long-term solution to the problem”. It also considers it “likely” that porpoising will worsen in 2023 as teams improve their cars’ designs and generate more downforce.

The FIA has therefore proposed four changes to the technical regulations for 2023 in order to further reduce porpoising. Four changes have been submitted to the FIA World Motor Sport Council for approval.

Two changes will alter the design of the cars. The floor edges will be raised by 25mm and the under-floor diffuser throat will also be raised.

The FIA will also give itself better means to ensure the compliance of cars. A more stringent lateral floor deflection test will be introduced and cars will be fitted with more accurate sensors to help quantify the aerodynamic oscillation.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
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105 comments on “FIA proposes 2023 rules changes to address “significant safety matter” of porpoising”

  1. Mercedes’ newest wish list arrived, I see.

    1. Funny – you, and so many others in this thread who are complaining now, were the same ones who were originally gloating about how much you expected this new technical directive would punish Mercedes.

      Equally, so many here were talking about the importance of the FIA enforcing their rules strictly and that they should be clamping down on the teams that were circumventing the rules.

      Since the FIA’s own scrutineering team asked for this change, what happened to those who previously applauded them for incisive action to enforce the rules?

      1. you, and so many others in this thread who are complaining now, were the same ones who were originally gloating about how much you expected this new technical directive would punish Mercedes.

        Stop making stuff up.

        1. How is this a Mercedes wish list? Mercedes spent a lot of resources to understand the porpoising phenomena and finally got on top of it, why would they want a help from anyone?

          1. Because they always hide their true agenda. BTW, what makes you think they had porpoising problems? The whole porpoising issue was a made up TV show, to start the “safety” debate.

          2. There are generally two ways to become more competitive:

            (1) improve your own design
            (2) hinder development and maybe even slow down your competitors

            While the second floor stay would have fallen into 1 (though unsuccessful), the changes for the floor geometry included in this wish list are going for the second option.

            Now that the wind tunnel / CFD allotments have been reset for H2/2022, Mercedes have more resources available to tackle any changes for 2023, making these specific tweaks potentially even more potent, though of course there’s always the option they turn out like said second floor stay idea.

      2. Absolutely not. It was clear form the get go the first announcement was a distraction to subsequently favor Mercedes. Just with the tyre change last season, there lobby is unparalleled.

    2. You can’t stop attacking Mercedes, can you? Is that you can’t afford a Merc or did one run over your dog?

      1. @greenflag Lol says the one who can’t stop attacking RBR.

        1. I’ve never attacked RBR. Horner is a loudmouth but an excellent strategist, and Max had the championship gifted to him, but I have no quibble with the team or its cars. Newey is the greatest F1 engineer since Chapman.

          1. Newey is the greatest F1 engineer since Chapman.

            Rory Byrne beat him plenty.

    3. Weren’t you the one insisting that Mercedes could cure all of it’s ills with porpoising by raising their ride height?

      Now you’re claiming Mercedes wanted to raise their floor height all along?

      You really are a daft one, aren’t you?

      1. Your post would benefit from:

        (1) quoting what you believe may or may not have been written,
        (2) understanding what the suggested rules changes for 2023 are doing, and
        (3) a modicum of civility.

    4. I am just surprised they dont get it already this season. Is their money running out? Their lobby less effective? Last season they still could get in season regulatory changes…

      1. RBR got their cheat – ah changes in the last race last year, being gifted a WDC they didnt earn on track

        1. Sure, because a season is one race

          1. No, there also was points for a non race in Spa, no penalty for a deliberate takeout in Monza, too little penaltys for the crash attempts in Brazil and Jeddah, and some things more. But eventually they bluntly manipulated the WDC in the last race.

          2. Every one had half points for a non race in Spa. If you would qualify better, more points. That seems to me something a driver can control. Monza no points for either and a penalty for Max. Little penalties for the crash attempts in Brazil and Jeddah. First one agreed, second gets a bit more debatable. ‘And some things more’ is not a real thing. So Brasil and maybe Jeddah vs Silverstone and Hungary (the latter two having way more impact points wise). That would still make Max wrapping it up before Abu Dhabi. Especially if you start including the off track battle of Mercedes with their regulatory lobby. Especially the tyre lobby suiting the rear end of the Mercedes has been pivotal. Otherwise their come back would not have happened at all.

          3. A brake check like Jeddah deserves a DSQ plus a race ban at least. Shunting on a 300+ straight between guardrails with blind corners before is like the worst thing that can happen. To provoke something like by brakechecking is an assault beyond anything we have seen in F1 in the last 20 years at least.

          4. Ah, the brake checking thing. Maybe consult the telemetry of both cars before judging that one. It is clear both were playing around. I understand I am biased and look at things subjectively like any one else does, but I do take an effort to investigate situations and listen to multiple opinions.

  2. Thanks, Toto
    Thanks, Russell
    Thanks, Lewis

    Just change FIA in MIA.
    🤢

    1. CheeseBucket
      15th July 2022, 16:25

      Zzz

    2. Shaila-Ann Rao begins to stretch her reach within FIA it seems. Always handy to have your personal advisor now governing this circus

      1. as long as the RD is neutral and doesnt manipulate a WDC

    3. The FIA have never gifted Merc a championship, but instead stolen one from them, so how about no?

  3. Barry Bens (@barryfromdownunder)
    15th July 2022, 11:39

    And next year Mercedes will parade with ‘we’ve built the best car and its up to others to match it’

    Disgusting company

    1. disgusting is the behaviour of some orange fans, on track and here in the forum

      1. And in the grandstands too

  4. I guess it might have been a different story if Horner’s personal lawyer and advisor had got a job at the FIA…

  5. The technical aspect of F1 used to be so interesting… Now look at it…

  6. the reason the regulations allow such measures to be taken is precisely to allow decisions to be taken without being influenced by the competitive position each team may find themselves in

    The fact that they have stressed that the change isn’t influenced by the team’s competitiveness is already an implicit admission from whoever wrote this statement that the change was indeed influenced by some team complaining about his own position in the championship.

    If the change was made on purely safety basis, then the FIA wouldn’t have to bring the argument of fairness into the discussion. When the Halo was introduced, as far as I remember, the discussion was about how ugly it is, how useful will it be… but the argument of who is going to benefit from it was never brought to the table. The FIA are going down that dangerous Max Mosley route – that almost destroyed F1 – of bringing the safety card whenever they want to pass a political change.

    There is no doubt that all this masquerade of the FIA obtaining data from teams and inciting them to collaborate with regard to implementing a scientific metric to contain porpoising is just an agenda pushed by Wolff and his former personal advisor in charge of the sport to clampdown the way Ferrari and RBR are interpreting the floor regulations. Since he and his team have no tangible proof that they are breaking the rules in order to protest, he delegated the matter to the FIA which will do the job for him.

    1. @tifoso1989 Nailed it.

      It’s not even marketed very well. They could have tried at least to include some sort of medical report full of outrageous stuff that wouldn’t ever happen anyway, to at least make a case.

      1. @cobray
        Absolutely. It is very badly executed. Not to mention the pathetic show put in by the Mercedes drivers complaining about proposing every race. George Russel who was speaking on behalf of Mercedes as GPDA director and Lewis Hamilton amplifying his back pain in front of the cameras.

        1. CheeseBucket
          15th July 2022, 16:28

          Zzz

          1. I can beat that …. ZZzzzzz……

    2. @tifoso1989 it clearly doesn’t matter whatever the FIA said in that situation, because you are so insistent on criticising Mercedes and insisting that the FIA is biased in their favour that there is nothing they could have said that you wouldn’t have twisted against them.

      If they had said nothing, you would probably insist that it’s because Mercedes instructed them not to say anything – meanwhile, as shown here, if they insist that they are acting independently, you insist that must mean that they have something to hide and therefore attack Mercedes anyway.

      1. anon,
        You’re using the fact that I’m by default a Mercedes detractor (unless they change) to deflect from the real subject. The problem with Mercedes is not the fact that they are relentless competitors that will use any mean at their disposal to gain a competitive advantage. RBR can be sometimes even more annoying with that regard.

        The issue for me personally is their virtue signalling and the way they don’t refrain from publicly denigrating their rivals and when they are bending the rules or lobbying for rule change in their favour. I have been calling their behaviour which was at least clear for me ever since the start of the hybrid era. Finally, they were exposed last year as the sour losers they have always been.

        How about the rumours suggesting that the FIA, Ben Sulayem himself, have issued a request to 3 independent teams to ask for the amount of time required to implement the changes mentioned in the technical directive TD039 after not only Ferrari and RBR but other teams too doubted the way Mercedes reacted to the TD.

        The response was something like ~56 hours for the fastest team and ~72 hours for the slowest team and this is because of the treatment the floor must go through because of the small openings. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that Ben Sulayem is trying to figure out whether someone from the FIA have blew the whistle to Mercedes or not.

        I’m not speculating about the fact that the FIA is trying to clampdown the way Ferrari and RBR are interpreting the floor rules through the collect of data to implement a metric to contain porpoising. It’s the opinion circulating in the paddock. Mark Hughes wrote the exact same thing in an article for F1 explaining the technical directive that will come into force starting the Belgian GP.

    3. When the halo was brought in, nobody was discussing whether it would favour one team or another. Here, it’s all anyone is discussing. I don’t think the fact that someone acknowledged that is proof of anything but there fact that people are talking about it.

    4. Spot on.

  7. This is what the FIA gave of itself for Mercedes. The question is how much more Wolff will get himself. And he will get it for sure.

    1. RBR got a cheated WDC last year

      1. Its a season sport

        1. a season which was decided by a manipulation of the results in the final race. ignoring facts doesnt make them disappear

          1. A season which was a disgrace and staged to the bone in an effort to get Hamilton on equal points before that final race. Without it, the last race would not have been relevant at all since Max would already be champion. Silverstone, Hungary, Imola, in season tyre change. Any individual one of these felonies would already make Abu Dhabi obsolete. But it if makes people sleep better at night then I guess Abu Dhabi came in handy as an excuse.

  8. Jelle van der Meer (@)
    15th July 2022, 11:57

    And the dirty politics of Mercedes and Toto continues – really please get Toto out of F1 – he has his fingers in far too many pies and has far too much power to the extend it hurts the sport already since 2020 and only gotten worse in 2021 and again worse in 2022.

    It is BS it is safety issue – it is a setup issue and most teams have good legal solutions to deal with or reduce proposing – only Mercedes is struggling although seen very little problem in recent races and instead of just telling Mercedes to resolve their own problems the FIA is restricting all teams to help Mercedes catch up.

    Same as in 2021 the sudden pitstop change was directed by Mercedes and stupidly supported by the FIA, same with supposedly flexi wings Red Bull had (which they didn’t) – yet the flexi front wing from Mercedes didn’t need any extra scrutiny. Also why is nobody probing the blatant inside info Mercedes got before the Canadian GP with them having the extra support available and installed within hours of the FIA announcing it.

    Any possible win from Mercedes this year will be the merit of FIA mid season rule changes nothing to do with Mercedes technical development.

    1. yet last years WDC was cheated for RBR/VER. So much as to have oned fingers in it.

      1. Haha yeah right 😂 Just face it. Verstappen was better in an inferior car last year. And all those dirty Mercedes politics for changing the RB rear wing and pitstops… And even with their max turned on PU and their own bending rear wing couldnt stop Verstappen. Verstappen rightly WC 2021.

        1. Spot on sir.

        2. CheeseBucket
          15th July 2022, 16:31

          Max is an egotistical pr ick, worst thing that could happen was for him to cheat his way into a WDC. At least it will be forever tainted, as everyone has accepted.

          Proof… Massi went.

          1. Pitstop Boys – Super Max! Yo Hé, Yo Hó ! There is also the English version :)

        3. RBR was on the same level last year. But Max needed a cheating RD to get an irregular WDC.

    2. The “pit stop safety problem” last year started with an orchestrated spin from Bottas. It’s like the FIA advised Mercedes to let their driver spin in theatrical style first, before they were able to “do something” about Red Bulls fast pit stops. If you watch the replay, it looks 100% deliberate.

    3. Dont forget the 2021 in season tyre changes hugely benefiting the rear end of the Mercedes. Also advocated as ‘a safety issue’. I have never come across a team that is so openly influencing all off track elements they can get their hands on.

    4. @jelle-van-der-meer “please get Toto out of F1”

      I think you should more urgently be asking to get Toto out of your head because he seems to live there rent free. Have you ever met the man? I ask because I wonder how you can be so certain of his intentions if you have only ever seen the snippets and sound bites that make it into interviews?

      1. I get your point but there is no denying his posture, gestures and talk wasn’t exactly team boss worthy and triggered a lot of the unfriendliness currently seen in the grand stands. He has a huge responsibility for that, together with Horner. I hope one day to hear about the conversations on his performance within the Board room of Daimler Benz. There must have been quite some strong discussions on his impact on the brand values of this major company. I get the shareholder structure protects him, but I have no doubt that without it (and him finding himself on the payroll) he would have been fired.

  9. As others have suggested, what they’re proposing is a sticking plaster to manufacture a “fairer” game.

    Why not reintroduce a mandated active suspension system and prescribe in-race ride height. It would level the playing field whilst still giving designers and engineers room for improvement, it’ll produce even closer racing and highlight the great from the good amongst the drivers.

  10. Unless absolutely necessary, there should be no in-season rule changes. There doesn’t seem to be any justification for this, as teams have demonstrated an ability to control the issue just fine. Note that an ability is not the same as a willigness. Sadly, it seems that, for whatever reason, the FIA is unable to make the distinction.

    Anyway, good job Mercedes for constantly finding new issues for the FIA to focus on; whether it’s wings, tyres, engine upgrades, pitstops, suspensions, or now floors.

    1. It’s absolutely necessary. 10g vertical at 3Hz or thereabouts is asking for lifelong spinal damage, which isn’t pleasant.

      1. @dang Which is within the teams to control. The TD will force the hands of the stubborn ones who have chosen to punish their drivers by not voluntarily doing that which they will now have no choice for Belgium.

      2. @dang There’s definitely a valid concern for the health of the drivers in certain circumstances, but at the moment those are caused by a problem that many teams are demonstrating isn’t inherent with the regulations but rather a problem with certain cars, or more specifically with the set up of certain cars.

        Changing the regulations to take that choice off the table is fine, but it’d be much better to do it for the 2023 season so every team has the same basic guidelines when building their cars.

  11. What all this means is that all cars can now raise their cars to alliviate the problem, knowing that the same effects will be experianced by all, and not just some. Either they all bend the rules to compete, or no one bends the rules.

    1. That I am aware of no one is bending the rules. RBR has already figured out how to run higher, still seal the air underneath, be as competitive as they are, and have insignificant porpoising. They have no problem to alleviate. They should be able to accommodate the mid-season TD easily. As well it should be no problem for RBR for next year as they already didn’t need to run nearly as low as Mercedes for example. It is the likes of Mercedes that will have to move away form their ultra-low philosophy and do a re-think.

      1. Finally … +2

  12. Some of you out in force running scared of the prospect of other teams catching up, didn’t see you complain at all the changes made to slow Mercedes down over the last 8 years.

    1. @slowmo As we know any ‘changes made to slow Mercedes down over the last 8 years’ were insignificant and didn’t affect them one iota.

      As to ‘running scared’ I personally have utter faith in Max, RBR, and Newey to be able to adapt just fine. Bring it on.

      1. So engine modes had no effect…right.

      2. Forbidding DAS also had no effect? Fueö changes? How stupid can one be, not to see all that. Orange glasses off, and you will see the world has more colors than dark and light orange.

        1. petebaldwin (@)
          15th July 2022, 20:08

          I love how some of the most bias people on this website complain about others being bias. It’s brilliant. 😂

          1. just another comment of an merc anti-fan.

    2. We must have been watching a totally different decade

    3. The only major change made was changing, and then all but dropping, the engine development tokens. And that was mostly because Ferrari demonstrated that the rules were badly written, and effectively unenforceable, and because F1 realised it risked losing Honda and Renault if they stuck to the original plan of a phased in total development freeze.

      The floor changes for 2021 were notable, but not huge. The rest was minor at best, or clarifications of things that weren’t intended, or to prevent spending wars in following seasons. For an example of the FIA actively trying to sabotage a team, look no further than the massive changes that were made to pretty much everything from tyres and engines to testing and qualifying formats from 2003 to 2006.

  13. Its pretty clear and has been since Silverstone that Red Bull and Ferrari have been running flexible floors that are not in compliance with the rules. Tests being introduced to ensure teams aren’t cheating is not changing the rules.

    On the subject of the enforced setup changes for porpoising I fail to see why Ferrari and Red Bull are concerned as we’ve been told for months they don’t have any issue to fix so surely they’ll have no problem proving that with sensors on their cars.

    Regardless of the safety aspect, the FIA were quite up front at the start of the year that they could and would change the rules mid season if somebody took advantage of any grey area or loop hole. Most of you complaining knew this when you campaigned to get the sidepodless concept banned in pre season.

    1. @slowmo Pretty clear? I think that remains to be seen right? Horner seems to have zero concerns about this. Grey areas and/or loopholes have yet to be proven.

      As to the sidepodless design or any other design for that matter I’m pretty sure ‘we’ can’t campaign to have anything banned as fans in our armchairs. As I recall the only objection seemed to have lasted for about half a day when some questioned if Mercedes were meeting the side impact requirements and then it was quickly pointed out that their mirror structure made their design legal.

      1. @slowmo Pretty clear? I think that remains to be seen right? Horner seems to have zero concerns about this. Grey areas and/or loopholes have yet to be proven.

        I’ve just read down the comments and I feel I could have predicted who would say what from the moment I read the headline.
        Lots of “it’s Toto to blame” and accusations of unprofessional actions by someone who was headhunted from Mercedes by the FIA, mixed with a few defenders pointing out how ridiculous the accusations were.

        I agree, who is affected remains to be seen. When the first noises of impending rule changes came up the most likely team to fall foul of the new tests was Mercedes – after all a 10G bounce would definitely trigger a response by the stewards now fully armed with new regs that say that is bad, bad, bad. Now MB have applied a few changes based on learnings from the earlier races and that looks less likely.

        The intriguing bit is that Binotto said porpoising “was not a subject in Silverstone, it has not been here a subject, in Austria, for [any] of us. I’m pretty sure it will not be in the next two races.”
        and Horner said there were “absolutely no issues or concerns on our floor”.

        Yet both those teams were very quick to object to the new regulations and tests. If there’s nothing about their cars that would fail the tests, why are they objecting?

        1. They might be objecting because the FIA has a habit of divulging sensitive and competitively advantageous data when other teams keep stirring the pot and constantly bringing up new ‘concerns’ under the guise of safety or future development. Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes all have a habit of doing this. Mercedes and Red Bull in particular in recent years; for obvious reasons.

          We’ll see which teams make changes and what they’ll change. What is certain is that none of the team principals can be trusted to give a from a disinterested and honest take on the situation, as they’ve demonstrated time and again.

        2. SteveP as MichaelN says all teams object to mid-season changes when they themselves have nailed the regs and the ones struggling might get let off the hook with said changes. In this case RBR are ultra competitive and have designed their car from the getgo with virtually insignificant porpoising. Ferrari are ultra competitive even with what seems to be manageable porpoising, so of course would not want to see that messed with either.

          “If there’s nothing about their cars that would fail the tests, why are they objecting?” Answer: Because there’s nothing about their cars that fail the tests and they’re competitive, so why should they be potentially disadvantaged by having other teams advantaged with mid-season changes? All top teams would object to mid-season changes when they are in a winning mode on merit.

    2. +1

      thanks for a comment of common sense, between all the orange hate here

    3. A lot of assumptions here. Flexible non compliant floors? RB being worried over set up changes? Havent heard nor seen any of that. I just see theatrics from racing drivers on sour backs and an ever complaining and lobbying Mercedes, putting former employees inside FIA.

      1. You see what you want to see. If you think all drivers speaking about the problems of porpoising are making up things, then this is how you perceive it.

    4. Its pretty clear and has been since Silverstone that Red Bull and Ferrari have been running flexible floors that are not in compliance with the rules.

      Can you explain why nobody has bothered to protest both RBR and Ferrari if they are blatantly abusing the rules ?

      1. @tifoso1989 The BBC reports:

        FIA has taken measures to limit the flexibility of the cars’ floors after it came to the conclusion in its measurements of the cars’ bouncing in recent races that some teams had found ways to flex their floors beyond expected limits

        If FIA is acting already, why protest? So far, so normal: new season, new regulations, new ways that teams try to flex the rules.

        1. @david-br
          I’m not saying Ferrari and RBR floors aren’t flexing. The thing is Ferrari and RBR have actually exploited a grey area in the regulations with regard to the plank and skid block mounting. The point is that there is nothing written in the rules that prevents them from doing so.

          There is no such thing called the intent of the regulations, either it is written in the rules or it isn’t. The FIA have discovered that they have omitted being precise with that particular area and are working now to close the loophole. Even if the FIA is in charge of the matter, every team has the right to mount a protest. Legally speaking, Ferrari and RBR are compliant. Though Toto is doing his thing, whenever a rival team comes up with something then they must be cheating.

          1. @tifoso1989 I don’t disagree with any of that. Though pretty much the same applied to Mercedes and DAS, which Red Bull officially protested. It depends what you define as ‘cheating.’ I’m fine with rule bending and fine with FIA closing its own loopholes subsequently. Not so fine about stuff like designing a system to by-pass FIA fuel flow sensors, for instance.

          2. @david-br
            Absolutely ! I have said it before, I’ve always considered DAS – same as the F-Duct and the double diffuser – to be a genius interpretation of the rules. The Ferrari fuel flow-meter saga was a blatant abuse of the rules.

            The thing is Ferrari was saved by the fact that the system was mighty clever combined with the special fuel technology provided by Shell that made it almost impossible for the FIA figure out how Ferrari were achieving higher fuel flow despite being guided by both RBR and Mercedes and having seized Ferrari hardware for the entire winter to investigate.

  14. My take seems to be different from just about everyone else and I think this has nothing to do with Mercedes. I think that while investigating the porpoising, the FIA found that teams were running “trick” floors that were not in what they felt were the spirit of the rules. They have then come up with the mid-season directive and a more permanent solution to address that. My belief is the porpoising is secondary to flexible floors/disappearing skid blocks but the FIA just keep putting the word porpoising in their releases because that was the original/reported/stated issue.

    1. My take seems to be different from just about everyone else and I think this has nothing to do with Mercedes. I think that while investigating the porpoising, the FIA found that teams were running “trick” floors that were not in what they felt were the spirit of the rules.

      Which, I think, is a pretty good summary of the combined comments from the FIA. They were looking at the issue, probably looked at what people could do to deal with the problem, and which of the design tweaks fell inside and which fell outside the rules.
      A check of design data then showed them that a team or two had followed one of those outside the rules paths.
      If the required change makes no notable difference to performance, then the team will wonder why they bothered and if it makes a notable difference these columns will be full of “cheaters” comments.

      Oh, and every so often we get one of those things where the cars go round on a track for about 2 hours.

    2. @velocityboy Nice observation.

  15. Why now? They knew there was a high likelihood of porpoising when they allowed ground effects. Did none of them think that the teams would generate at least as much downforce as the teams did 30 years ago when they got rid of underbody ground effects? If they allowed active suspension it would not be a problem but they are stuck to old springs and shocks.

  16. Now that these rule changes are coming along, somehow Lewis’s back is alright and jumping up and down during the podium ceremonies. hmm…

    1. Obviously cause porpoising was far less in races after Baku.

  17. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
    16th July 2022, 9:15

    Another forum where the comments are distilled down to anything the FIA does is either because ORBR or Mercedes wanted it.
    Nothing the FIA does is on their own merit it seems.

    1. They do some things on their own initiative and they let themselves be influenced in other cases. Has always been the case. In the past it was Ferrari that was favored and recently it is Mercedes. It does put the achievements of Mercedes and Lewis in perspective and I must say that with every article I read these achievements mean less and less to me.

      1. last year FIA favoured RBR eventually, going as far as letting the RD break the rules to manipulate the WDC

        1. Its a season sport, the champion is determined over the course of a season. Not over a single race.

          1. like Spa, Monza, Brazil, Jeddah and some other races where Max was favoured. And the WDC was decided in the manipulation of the final race. Face the facts

          2. Facts are the season was going quite well for RB and Max until Lewis shunted him off in Silverstone, hardly got penalised and was enabled to still win (!) the race (talking about favoring a driver here, thats 25 points handed to him by race control) and acted foul afterwards, setting the tone for the remainder of the season and all the negativity that is still unfolding. All because Lewis made it clear all is fair in a fight apparently. Subsequently Mercedes got an never seen before in season tyre compound change, hugely benefitting their rear end after which they were suddenly back in the fight. Bottas shunted their competitors off once again. Very very convenient red flag in Italy again for Lewis (thank you again FIA). When it was still not working FIA allowed Mercedes to misuse the engine regulations and use a rocket engine in Brasil, one that could win a race if they started 30 min later than the rest of the field. No, the season has been very fair. Sure. You are talking about just 4 races in a total season. Spa, sorry but Lewis should just have qualified better. Everyone was treated the same. Monza, no points gain or loss between the two of them. Brasil, a penalty for Max would have been fair here, I agree. Maybe a lenient one, I mean if shunting someone (no, not just someone, your direct competitor) off gives you a few seconds time penalty allowing you to still win, than the fair penalty for Max in Brasil would be….? Add one second to his overall time? Jeddah. Dont recall the issue. Is it the touch under braking when they are both fiddling around with the drs thingy? Seemed both were pretty tangled up in eachother by that time of the season. So Abu Dabi can be labelled as a race where Max received an advantage by race control. That’s not a lot vs the favors Mercedes received throughout the year. Fact is Lewis lost in 2021. In hindsight (which is always easy but still) he lost the championship already at Silverstone. And more than just that championship imho. He also lost of lot of people’s respect that day.

          3. Max crashed himself out in silverstone with his bully aggressive driving style

          4. No one is allowed to challenge Lewis I guess. That makes for some boring racing, similar to the last decade. That’s probably where the false sense of entitlement comes from. Lewis and his fans forgot it is racing, not cruising and overtaking back markers. If you regard taking a corner and leaving a ample cars width on the inside as aggressive, then maybe this isn’t the sport to watch.

  18. Kind of sad that on a dedicated F1 site the discussion on technical regulations descends into tedious bickering. No fault of the site or its journalists, obviously.
    The new regulations for 2022+ were designed to allow closer racing, particularly in terms of reducing dirty air and making it possible for cars to follow more closely without losing excessive amounts of downforce and heating/damaging tyres, the engine etc. They seem to be working reasonably well in terms of that objective. Silverstone was a highlight for the new cars. Purpoising was anticipated to some extent with the new design, clearly not enough though, and various changes and restrictions have made some easier mitigating solutions unavailable this season. I don’t see the issue in making some solutions available for next season. All teams can benefit and the outcome should be better races and racing in general.

    1. * Porpoising, sigh.

  19. I want to make myself very clear, I don’t for a nanosecond think Redbull are cheating, they just found a ‘loophole’ and exploited it.
    Last year when the 2023 rules were released Brawn made it very clear multiple times that he would change the regs from race to race if necessary to close ‘loopholes’ to encourage closer racing. I and several others complained about it, I said it would stifle innovation and would lead to cars being all the same.
    Well here we are in 2023 and Brawn/FIA are implementing the rules as they said they would and now the usual suspects are jumping up and down complaining and claiming either FIA favouritism to Merc or Merc directly intervening to have the rules changed lol.

  20. I feel we can put these plans to bed as Mercedes seems to have fixed their bouncing problem. No need to drag the other teams along.

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