The FIA has several technical-sporting issues to resolve during the summer break, after extending the deadlines from this point of view in an exasperating way as Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto pointed out several times. Today the WMSC – the world motorsport council – is expected to ratify the new anti-porpoising rules for the 2023 Formula 1 championship, with clear indications for raising the car floor, as the FIA hopes this will reduce or completely eliminate the aerodynamic bouncing supposedly represents a health issue – especially in the long term, an idea mostly expressed by Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and its drivers.
The president of the International Automobile Federation, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, has already anticipated on Monday evening that he has an agreement in hand after having consulted all 20 drivers and ten teams involved in the 2022 F1 World Championship. The first rumors have indicated a compromise between the 25 millimeter increase in the floor initially proposed by the FIA and the final 15 that teams seems to agree with.
The FIA played the safety card to ‘overcome’ the problem of classic voting since the ‘numbers’ to approve these regulation changes were not there (six teams, namely Red Bull, Ferrari, AlphaTauri, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Williams would not have ever supported this anti-porpoising change). According to today’s edition of the Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, Ferrari will not resort to the right of veto, even if the Maranello team would have had this possibility given the ‘safety’ issue: “The Ferrari team principal, who sits on the World Council, could appeal to the right of veto, prerogative of the Maranello team to block initiatives that are against its interests. But, assuming that it is not precluded by the nature of this intervention (it concerns safety), it would not do so considering that the FIA continues to maintain that it has taken steps to protect the health of the drivers”, reads the columns of the Italian newspaper.
In the next few hours the details of the agreement reached will be officially announced, then on the table of Liberty Media and the FIA there will remain another unresolved issue of no small importance, namely the definitive regulation for the new engine cycle starting with the 2026 Formula 1 season. Porsche and Audi, the two brands of the Volkswagen group that have expressed interest in entering Formula 1, are waiting for the guidelines initially anticipated to be formalized a few months ago. The more time passes, however, it becomes more difficult for these new constructors to enter Formula 1.
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