FIA technical directive on porpoising to come into force at French Grand Prix

The subject was on everyone's lips in the paddock of the F1 to Montreal. Last Thursday June 16, on the eve of the first free practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix, the FIA ​​published a technical directive governing porpoising. The goal ? Establish a metric, a measurement of vertical oscillation, beyond which the teams can no longer go, in order to tackle the subject head on and try to resolve it collectively. 

The problem is that by publishing the press release so late, the FIA ​​took the teams by surprise, who were unable to organize themselves. In the same way, defining a reference metric concerning vertical oscillations requires a certain amount of data, which the legislator of the discipline would surely not have been able to collect in sufficient quantity through free practice sessions 1 and 2 alone. As a result, the decision was made to keep the technical directive, but to use the Canadian Grand Prix as a test to store data, without however penalizing the teams. 

A reference metric defined to combat porpoising

This Thursday, the day before the start of hostilities on the Silverstone track, the FIA ​​communicated again, updating its prerogatives. We learned in particular that the TD would become truly effective from the French Grand Prix, which will be held on July 24. “The FIA ​​is taking the next steps to resolve this issue (that of porpoise) and sent the teams an updated draft of the technical directive, we learned from the FIA. The FIA's analysis of the vertical oscillation data has been completed, and we have defined a metric – which has been communicated to the teams so that they can conduct their own analyzes at the next two Grands Prix, and thus understand , if necessary, what changes they could put in place to comply with the technical directive when it becomes effective at the French Grand Prix. 

The teams suffering from porpoising will therefore have two Grands Prix, at Silverstone (July 3) and Spielberg (July 10), to carry out their own calculations and thus find the right adjustment in order to be below the maximum threshold in three weeks at least. Paul Ricard. We haven't heard the last of it! 

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