Picture Credit: Formula 1
After the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the FIA has announced strategies to control porpoising which has been a crucial part of the 2022 season. FIA is issuing a Technical Directive to the teams for implementing efforts to tackle the issue.
The FIA has not confirmed when the rules would be implemented as the announcement was made 24 hours before Friday's opening practice session at the ninth Grand Prix of the season in Montreal, Canada. The technical directive issued will force teams struggling with porpoising to change the setup of their car to protect their drivers, with a limit on the level of "vertical oscillations" being introduced.
FIA Statement
The FIA said: “Following the eighth round of this year’s FIA Formula One World Championship, during which the phenomenon of aerodynamic oscillations (“porpoising”) of the new generation of Formula 1 cars, and the effect of this during and after the race on the physical condition of the drivers was once again visible, the FIA, as the governing body of the sport, has decided that, in the interests of the safety, it is necessary to intervene to require that the teams make the necessary adjustments to reduce or to eliminate this phenomenon.”
I think it's promising to see that they've taken action on this straight away: Russell
Mercedes Driver George Russell has addressed the statement issued by the FIA. He talked about how his team isn’t only pushing for the rule change. "I think this is something that everybody thinks Mercedes is sort of pushing for, but from a pure performance side of things... we don't really want change because if there's change, you never know if it's going in your favour or against you," Russell said.
"It doesn't matter what boat you're in, you're either porpoising and you're hitting the ground, or you have no porpoising so you're running the car really close to the ground and you're bottoming, so either way you look at it, it's not great.”
"I think it's promising to see that they've taken action on this straight away and it's not taken them weeks and months and political decisions to change something like this. When it comes to safety, things need to be resolved as soon as possible, so I'm not surprised to see it come in so quickly but I think it's good for everyone."