The FIA World Motorsport Council has finally pushed for rule changes to deal with porpassing for the 2023 F1 season.
After much discussion, the edge of the floor of the F1 car will be higher in 2023, and the position of the diffuser throat will be higher. The floor edge will also be strengthened to address the excessive bouncing problem that has plagued some F1 teams in 2022.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) has requested that additional sensors be placed on the floor to monitor porpoise.
However, after some teams lobbied, a compromise of 15mm was adopted rather than the 25mm floor height increase originally proposed by the FIA.
Ferrari and Red Bull were among the teams that opposed the change, while McLaren and Mercedes, who suffered the most from bouncing, pushed for the change on safety grounds.
In a statement on Tuesday, the FIA said the changes would be implemented in a way that “avoids affecting the design of the team’s mechanical parts”.
But some have suggested that the design of the 2023 F1 car is already in an advanced stage and the late changes will make it easier for the big teams to adapt.
Ahead of the summer break and a final decision on rule changes, Alpine F1 team chief technology officer Pat Fry said fine-tuning to F1’s floor regulations for 2023 would put more staff in place to address the issue. I think it will only help the big teams because they can do that.
“For us it’s an engineering resource. Clearly our aero department is much smaller than our top three teams and the one we’re fighting. They’re all bigger than us,” said Pat Frye. .
“They may be putting 20 people over the cost cap to do a yacht or a bike, but you can very easily pull them back and drive them away again to fix the problem.”
“So having that level of extra capacity gives them a big advantage. Delaying the rules for them is great because they know all the small teams can’t cope. It’s because you’re there.”
Pat Fry says Alpine F1 Team is ‘growing and getting better’ but remains ‘reasonably sized’ within cost caps and like other organisations, ‘massive over-run’ of staff said no.
F1 teams have been forced to grapple with a new cost cap of $145m per season since last year, with some big teams diverting staff to other projects.
“It’s a little bit of a challenge for us,” Pat Frye said before the rule change was confirmed.
“The sooner we find out about the changes, the better, really, because they would ruin what we were already trying to do.”
“In any case, I’m sure all the teams have weeks in the wind tunnel for next year’s car concept.”
“But the amount of work that we actually did is going to change with the rule changes.”
The FIA has also approved changes to the roll hoops following Guan-yu Zhou’s Alfa Romeo car’s horrific accident at July’s British Grand Prix that cut the roll hoops.
Ahead of further changes planned for 2024, the homologation tests have also been revised, but the top of the roll hoop design has been tweaked.
Category: F1 / F1 machine