The teams got their first chance to run their 2022 cars at competition speed this week in pre-season testing in Barcelona, having only put the single-seaters on the tarmac at filming day.
One of the phenomena that has attracted the most attention during the tests has been ‘porpoising’, in which a loss of aerodynamic load generated by the ground effect causes the cars to bounce up and down when they reach a certain speed in the straight.
The last time this happened was in the early 1980s, when Formula 1 cars still had ground effect within the aerodynamic regulations.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto said on Thursday that teams had underestimated the impact it would have , but that he expected it to be “pretty straightforward” to resolve.
The Mercedes W13 was one of the cars that seemed most affected by the porpoising problem during testing, where George Russell and his teammate, Lewis Hamilton , split the driving hours, with half a day each.
“I think you can see some problems with the cars on the straights,” said the new Mercedes driver. “So it’s something we need to figure out to be the fastest, it’s something I don’t think any team has experienced before, and we’re seeing some interesting things on track.”
Russell said that although he “didn’t experience it too much”, it was “not pleasant at all” to feel it in the cockpit, and reflected on whether the teams most affected by it face a safety issue.
“From what I’ve seen on other teams in particular, it would be a security issue, so you have to fix it one way or another,” he said. “But there are a lot of smart people on this grid, and I’m sure they’ll all catch up sooner rather than later.”
One of the solutions that some teams have put in place to solve the problem is to open the DRS more times in the lap, reducing the downforce of the car.
Carlos Sainz , a Ferrari driver, pointed out that this setback affects “some more than others” and that “it depends on the configuration that is carried”.
“It’s a completely new world and you have to understand it, because it seems like it could be a theme for this year,” settled the Madrid native.
