Formula One teams are looking for compromises to get around “porpoising” – Why qualifying in particular presents them with difficult decisions
For Formula One teams and drivers, “porpoising” came as a nasty surprise during pre-season testing in Barcelona. And it could, until the teams find a permanent solution, present them with a profound qualifying problem at the first races of the 2022 season.
“Porpoising” occurs when ground effect cars repeatedly touch down due to high downforce on the straight, severely disrupting the process of generating downforce over the ground. The car “bounces” upwards until it is sucked in again. The result is repeated bouncing.
This phenomenon is not only a nuisance for drivers but, as George Russell of Mercedes said, has the potential to become a real safety issue in the race.
While some teams suffered more from the problem than others, they are all looking for solutions to mitigate the effect initially and eliminate it in the long term. However, as most teams were surprised by the extent of the “porpoising” in Barcelona, the adjustments are likely to take some time.
Raising the ride height solves the problem, but …
considering the long lead times for permanent design changes, some compromises will probably have to be found first to cope with the first few races of 2022. A quick solution to limit “porpoising” is simply to raise the ride height of the cars to prevent them from constantly touching down on the straights.
But the new generation of Formula 1 cars for 2022 are designed to rely heavily on ground effect. This means that they must be driven as stiffly and as low as possible to generate the maximum downforce.
Raising the height of the car by more than a few millimetres could therefore result in a loss of several tenths of a second in lap time, meaning teams have to decide whether to sacrifice performance or, conversely, risk extreme ‘porpoising’.
This also raises the question of how much the problem will manifest itself on other tracks: If it was just tolerable in the test conditions on the rather flat Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluyna, it could prove even more dangerous elsewhere on fast, more uneven tracks.
With DRS activated, less “porpoising “
And the dilemma intensifies as qualifying approaches. The teams have found that DRS can alleviate “porpoising”. This is because when DRS is activated, the car does not touch the ground as much as when the rear wing is closed.
On a flying lap in qualifying, DRS is used in every zone, whereas in the race it can only be used when you are close enough to the car in front. So the temptation might be to go for a set-up that is fast in qualifying with DRS open, but causes more problems on Sunday because the wing cannot be opened regularly.
As cars are not allowed to be worked on under parc ferme conditions between qualifying and the race, teams are faced with difficult decisions.
“We need to understand the cars well, but in qualifying you have to make a lot of compromises,” said Red Bull driver Sergio Perez. “Everyone wants to go as low as possible, but there is also the ‘porpoising’. To get the maximum out of qualifying, you have to drive low. But without DRS we have a problem.”
Carlos Sainz, whose Ferrari was among the cars that suffered most from ‘porpoising’, added: “It depends on the set-up you drive and whether you use the DRS or not. It’s a whole new world and a new understanding that we need to learn because it could be an issue for this year.”
Alpine sporting director Alain Permane says: “It’s definitely a real issue, but I think we need to get to grips with it and we will get to grips with it. I’m sure we will.” However, he thinks it is unlikely that teams will sacrifice some of their performance to deal with it.
“If they say we can stop this but you’re going to go half a second slower, I don’t think anyone’s going to put their hand up and say, ‘We’re going to do this.’ We’ll make the aerodynamic changes to stop it, but it’s going to cost us a lot of downforce.’ Nobody is going to do that. “
