Steadying the ‘porpoise effect’ will be key
Another big talking point in Spain was how the teams were caught out by ‘porpoising’ caused by the return of ground-effect aerodynamics. The term is used to describe the bounce effect caused by the bind and stall of the massive amounts of downforce created under these cars. Back in the late 1970s and early ’80s when ground effects changed the shape of F1, porpoising bounce was a headache all engineers faced in the era of air pressure-sealing sliding skirts that ran under the cars’ long sidepods. The trouble is, many of the engineers in F1 today weren’t even born when ground effects was banned at the end of 1982… For all of the modern simulation tools, it genuinely seems to have been overlooked or at least underestimated by some.
One who we can expect to fully understand the phenomenon is Adrian Newey, who worked at Fittipaldi and March as a young aerodynamicist back then. Last week Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner suggested the problem wasn’t a surprise – although like Mercedes and Ferrari, Newey’s team will need to get a grip on the bounce that gave the frontrunners something to think about in Spain. “I think it’s something all the teams have got,” said Horner. “It’s obviously a consequence of these aerodynamics, but I think you’ll be able dampen it. Whether you’ll be able to remove it I don’t know. Adrian has been around long enough to know some of the complications, and some of these issues weren’t unexpected to him. They weren’t a huge surprise.”
But as Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto suggested, whichever team calm the porpoise effect the quickest and most effectively could well come out of the blocks the fastest in the opening rounds. Of the top four teams, McLaren appeared to suffer the least amount of porpoising and Lando Norris was fastest on the opening day in Spain. Could this be a chance for his big breakthrough to make up for his near miss in Sochi last year?