Ferrari: F1 teams caught out by 'porpoising' ground effect issue

Mattia Binotto says teams underestimated the "porpoising" effect induced by F1's 2022-spec ground effect cars, but the Ferrari team boss is confident that everyone will eventually solve the issue.

Porpoising, or a car's unstable up and down pumping movement, occurs when extreme downforce generated by a car's underfloor venturi is suddenly disrupted and pressure is released, causing a car's ride height to suddenly increase until the airflow reattaches.

The oscillatory movement was a well-known and inevitable by-product of Formula 1's ground-effects era in the late seventies and early eighties.

But the phenomenon has come back to haunt teams this season and appears widespread in Barcelona where Grand Prix racing's new-spec cars are being tested in earnest for the first time.

Mercedes noted the problem on its W13, admitting that it is hampering its efforts to find the right balance for its new car.

Binotto acknowledged that optimizing a car's performance while solving the issue is likely to be a complicated exercise.

"I think that most of us at least underestimated the problem by where we are on track we are bouncing more than expected," said the Scuderia boss.

"We knew certainly that the ground [effect] situation would be different. It’s a learning process.

"How long it can take to address it or to solve it, I think that solving it, it can be quite straightforward.

"[But] optimising the performance – because it should not be a compromise, but you should try to avoid any bouncing by getting most of the performance of the car – that could be a less easy exercise.

"So I’m pretty sure that at some stage every single team will get a solution. How long it will take? I think that the ones that go there sooner will have an advantage at the start of the season."

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AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost suggested that porpoising was an early symptom of F1's 2022 cars, but that the issue will dissipate as development takes hold.

"This is the first situation of these new cars." Said Tost. "We are going to be evolving the cars.

"All the teams are going to be evolving them between now, between Bahrain the first race and the first few races. Here we’re testing, we’re just exploring. We’re pushing the envelope.

"We can adjust ride heights to put the car so it hits the ground as did last year’s car."

Alfa Romeo team boss Fred Vasseur, sitting alongside Binotto and Tost, agreed with his Ferrari counter-part.

"As Mattia said, to fix the problem is not the biggest issue, but then to be efficient will be the key and how quickly the team react will be key for the first races," said the Frenchman.

"I’m sure that in three or four events that the press won’t think anymore about bouncing."

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