The FIA have today announced that they will be intervening to prevent the issues caused by porpoising.
In the FIAs official statement they have promised that they will be increasing the scrutiny of skid blocks and planks on the underneath of the cars to observe the damage being caused by low ride height. The skid blocks are sections of titanium in place to ensure the cars are running the correct ride heights , any damage to the skid block is evidence of where the car has scraped the track. It has been found that ride height is one of the main causes of porpoising and the FIA are investigating and monitoring this more closely to come up with a long term solution .
They have also told us that a quantitative limit for vertical oscillations of the car will be in place and is currently being calculated by the FIA, these vertical oscillations are what has become known as porpoising and as a result of back and neck pain that drivers are facing, the FIA have consulted with doctors in the interest of driver safety, after some teams had suggested that the porpoising was a sacrifice that needed to be made in efforts to increase performance.
These investigations begun due to driver complaints. Lewis Hamilton was seen in pain and pulling himself out of his Mercedes after what he called “the most painful race ever” at last weekends Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Hamilton has also told media that he “is worried every time ” he steps in the car because of the injuries it has caused him driving with the severe bouncing. This created an even greater push on for limiting measures to be put in place, not only by drivers but by fans of the sport too.
In a strange twist of fate the change is likely to affect Mercedes most, with the team suffering the most with bouncing on the grid.
With a limit in place about how much the cars are able to bounce, this means it any team exceeding it will have to raise their ride height in order to comply, which is likely to slow their cars down unless they find their own solution to porpoising.
We can only wait and see how these measures will work , and hopefully see the drivers in less pain for the coming races.