The FIA assured that no Formula 1 team cheated on purpose with flexi car floors in 2022. But conceded that there was room to do some “trickery”.
During midseason, the F1 sport remained engulf in porpoising controversy. Additionally, it remain engulfed by a technical directive from the FIA, aiming to address the matter.
It imposed a limit to the bouncing based on an aerodynamic oscillation metric. The FIA also imposed stricter checks on flexibleff floors. It aimed to limit the teams ambitions and abilities to find themselves closer to the ground.
The suspicions went as far as fitting disappearing skid blocks on the car. The skids manufactured could avoid hitting the ground, which helps in passing post race tests.
Nikolas Tombazis, FIA single-seater technical director, reflected on the porpoising issue. He assured that no team intended to breach regulations on purpose.
However, he assured new regulations enacted will ensure the implementation in true sense. He assured that there is no loophole for anyone to get around.
“Teams clearly always tend to work on the edge of the regulations. And we didn’t think anybody was cheating back then,” he said.
“But the way the regulations were written permitted a bit of trickery, let’s say, that was unintended. That’s why we clarified the regulations by a technical directive. And put some changes in the regulations.
“There’s two areas of the regulations where we can act unilaterally without F1 Commission approval. The one is to do with stiffness, Article 3.15, and the other one is to do with safety. That gave us the necessary ability to act on that front.”
FIA director Tombazis on Porpoising
The porpoising issue fired speculations and it became very political. The competitive teams deemed it unnecessary for FIA to change all cars.
Tombazis admitted that it is difficult to deal with competitive teams, who have other interests.
“It’s normally a predicament, because in Formula 1, almost everything is presumed to be benefitting somebody more than somebody else, because ultimately somebody has to win and somebody will not win,” he said.
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“So with the exception of some things like safety, where generally speaking most people tend to agree, there’s huge difficulty in getting people to agree on almost anything else. And I know that, because I’ve been on the other side of the fence.
“It’s so intense for them that they always forget very quickly things they’ve benefitted from occasionally, and always remember the ones that have penalised them.
“We try to be as even-handed as we can, and we definitely don’t look at benefitting one more than the other or anything like that.”
