In the midst of a still unresolved dispute between the teams and the governing body over the intention to change the floor regulations for new generation single-seaters for next season in order to avoid porpoising, impatience is growing for a solution .
The teams fear it is already too late for the FIA to go ahead with the original idea of raising the edges of the floor by 25mm , and there has been talk of legal proceedings if they go ahead.
However, during the 2022 Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, Red Bull boss Christian Horner suggested that it is important for the international federation to ensure that any measures taken do not have unforeseen consequences that force teams to look for tricks
“It’s not just about raising the height of the bottom, or the diffuser, which can have an impact on the components that you want to keep for the next season,” he said. “I think there are other aspects related to the increased load at the edge of the ground.”
“We don’t want to get into a development race where as the bottom height goes up, elasticity becomes day-to-day and we all end up chasing fancier concepts,” explained Horner.
“I think it’s important that the whole package is treated as a whole, rather than individual elements,” continued the Briton.
FIA President Mohammed ben Sulayem appears to have taken personal responsibility for reaching a compromise on the soil issue, and teams hope a definitive answer can be given before the summer break. However, Horner believes that it is already too late for the modifications that have been suggested, although he downplayed the possibility of the matter reaching the courts.
“I think nobody wants to end up legal,” he said. “I think there needs to be a little bit of common sense, and a little bit of compromise, and that the problem is, again, within the current rules, you have different hours in the wind tunnel depending on how you finish in the world”.
“At this point, we’ll be up until 10pm next year. If you’re faced with fundamental change, that can have significant consequences, so I think there’s interest, hopefully, in coming to a sensible compromise.” Red Bull manager.
Aston Martin boss Mike Krack agreed that time is running out for teams to know what the 2023 rules are: “I don’t think there will be a legal fight, but we will find a solution as we have with many other things before.”
“As Christian [Horner] said, we have to move on,” continued the Silverstone team’s chief executive.
Ferrari is known to be unhappy with the changes planned on the ground for next year, as it considers that it makes things difficult for its 2023 car, as its sporting director, Laurent Mekies , indicated: “It is too late to change the cars of the next season”.
“Most of us are already at the final stages of our programmes. Porpoising hasn’t been an issue for quite a few races, so it will be quite a hassle to impose a design change now,” he said.
