Mercedes were surprised to learn that rival teams had been exploiting rules around the flexibility of their floors.
Recently, the FIA announced that they were looking to amend the rules to help limit porpoising, these changes are being brought in under safety grounds and to limit the long term damage to drivers.
However, Mercedes has been surprised, when it emerged during meetings last week’s that she teams may have been exploiting the rules to help limit the effects of the bouncing caused by porpoising.
It would seem that some teams have managed to find a way to have their floors flex as much as 6mm as apposed to the 2mm stated in the regulations. The increase flex allows the teams to minimise porpoising, thus giving them an opportunity to run a better setup.
Mercedes have been hampered by extreme porpoising, which has left them unable to compete with either Redbull or Ferrari at the front of the grid.
“Nobody had an idea until the FIA brought it up in the last Technical Advisory Committee, which was to a great surprise of all the teams, what’s in the regulation and what the intent of the regulations is pretty clear. I mean, there’s is no argument why that could deflect more than what’s in the regs. So a bit of a surprise to say the least: more a shocker.”
Toto Wolff, Mercedes Team Principal on “Flexi Floor” exploit.
FIA’s single-seater technical director Nikolas Tombazis, has released a draft technical directive, which is designed to limit the effects of porpoising, these new regulations are set to me introduced at the French GP, are in part designed to tighten up the regulations around floor stiffness. Tombazis made clear that the FIA believed teams having ‘excessive deformation’ of the floor was being done: “to achieve significantly lower ride heights, and hence an indirect aerodynamic gain.” He went onto say that the change would create a fair and equitable relevance amongst all the cars.