At the start of the 2022 pre-season testing in Barcelona it became clear that teams could benefit from having flexible edges on the floor of the cars. When the car is going at high speed, the bottom could seal the gap that is left with respect to the asphalt and that would cause the already famous porposing effect.
At the same time, some teams, notably Mercedes, have explored other ways of making the floor more rigid by using tie rods placed close to the rear suspension.
This was, in part, a solution to the problem of porpoising that appeared in Montmeló and that some attributed to the deflection of the bottom. Teams are also struggling to make the floors stiff enough to meet the FIA’s flex tests without adding too much weight.
Although the total limit has risen considerably this year, adding to around 50kg, it is understood that most single-seaters are well over the 795kg mark.
Teams have been forced to reinforce the floor of their cars by adding additional material, and these braces are a way of complying with the regulations of the regulatory body without adding more weight to the car.
“I think stiffness will be an interesting topic,” Brawn said in an interview with F1 TV . “It always is, and when there is a new regulation, the teams start to understand which areas are sensitive from a stiffness point of view.”
“There’s a very obvious one which is rear wing stiffness, if you can hold the wing position in the mid-speed corners but not on the straight you lose drag, everyone knows that,” he explained.
“The behavior of the ground is still not fully understood, I think the FIA is up to speed with load and stiffness tests, because nothing is totally stiff,” continued Brawn. “So saying the floor has to be stiff doesn’t mean anything, it’s about setting load and deflection parameters to establish what we consider legal, and the FIA is on it.”
Brawn suggested that more teams would investigate floor stiffness ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, but the introduction of these bottom-anchored braces would not be mandatory to comply with the regulations.
“I think that before the first race everyone will try to achieve stiffness, because all the teams have had problems with porpoising. Some of them have the challenge of keeping the bottom as stiff as possible because porpoising is caused by the deviation of the bottom.” he explained.
“That’s another element they have to deal with. What has become clear is that meeting the weight limit is going to be another challenge with these cars,” added Ross Brawn .
“There are a lot of initiatives in terms of safety after the terrible F2 accident at Spa and the crash of Romain Grosjean. So the weight limit, or the weight of the single-seaters, increased,” concluded the general director of Formula 1 .
