The purpose to prevent the porpoise

Prior to the French Grand Prix the FIA announced it would be making a few changes to the technical regulations for 2023. These were being made with the aim of further helping the elimination of the porpoising problems suffered by some cars.

Those changes were to be: 1) The floor edges raised by 25mm to prevent the bodywork making a seal with the ground; 2) Raising the minimum height of the throat of the diffuser to make the underside of the car more tolerant of changes in dynamic ride height; 3) Lateral deflection tests for the floors; and 4) More accurate sensors to monitor whether regulation vertical acceleration limits are being breached.

It has not gone down well with several teams. Red Bull’s Christian Horner said: “We’re talking of a potential regulation change for next year that, here we are in August, with what could be a major redesign of the car if the size of the floor were raised by the 25mm that they’re talking about. It’s already ten-past-midnight for these changes… I think there has been considerable lobbying behind the scenes from certain teams.”

“We’ve got to find out what those changes are at this point,” said McLaren technical director James Key.

“I know there’s a bit of concern from some teams. As a team that hasn’t particularly suffered from porpoising, we’re still in favour of it, because we think it’s the right thing to do. So,

I think with the sorts of things that have been proposed, they’re big enough to have to put fresh research on to it.

“Not everything is going to carry over in terms of your aerodynamic knowledge: there will be a few impacts on packaging, and that sort of thing but I don’t… personally, I don’t see it as a radical change enough to where you’ve got to step back and think: we’ve got to re-lay the car out now because, all of these things require something different.”