So why is it so difficult to prevent porpoising? Well, it isn’t, but it costs performance. And that’s the problem: you can raise the ride height to mitigate the porpoising, as it reduces the effectiveness of the aerodynamic ‘seal’ and therefore the overall level of downforce of the car by effectively ‘venting’ low pressure – particularly at the point where that grows rapidly as the floor gets close to the ground. And downforce is performance, with the grip it produces dwarfing what is achievable mechanically.
Simulating porpoising is difficult, because you can’t run the car too low to the rolling belt in the windtunnel or it will damage it. And as effective as CFD is, the complexity of its calculations multiplies alarmingly and breaks down when simulating objects very close to the ground. The data that Mercedes has gathered has helped it build better models, but it’s only by running the car that it can explore the problem and its potential solutions fully.
The combination of F1’s cost cap, set at a baseline level of $140 million (£107m) in 2022 and the lack of testing means Mercedes neither has the cash for endless trial-and-error fixes nor the track time.
The solution likely lies in a combination of modifying the aero in terms of floor design and potentially even the floor structure. This is because the flexing of the floor can exacerbate the problem. F1’s new regulations have also simplified suspension systems, eliminating inerters and hydraulic assistance that would have made controlling the porpoising easier.