Mirrors, tyres, porpoising control and aerodynamics. There are many changes to the 2023 Formula 1 technical regulation, among which modifications to the floor to counteract aerodynamic bouncing, an natural phenomenon for the single-seaters based on ground effect, which stood out especially in the start of the 2022 season.
In detail, an increase in height for both the external edge of the floor, equal to 15 mm, and the minimum section of the diffuser, imposed at 10 mm, will be introduced from next year. The changes alone should slow down the performance improvement of the new generation single-seaters, in that continuous pursuit between teams and the Federation which has been at the heart of Formula 1 for years.
According to what has been reported by the German editorial staff of Auto Motor und Sport in a conversation with Nikolas Tombazis, FIA technical director, the restrictions on the floor will lead to an estimated loss of between 15 and 20 load points for each car, equivalent to 5-7% of the overall downforce. The changes alone will be worth about half a second more lap time, but the time gained with the natural winter development of the cars will have to be subtracted from it.
Already with the shift from 2020 to 2021, the regulations introduced restrictions on the floor, diffuser and rear aerodynamics costing 10% of downforce, promptly recovered by the teams despite the development freeze and the cars at the end of their cycle, close to their maximum potential at that moment. Therefore, the 2023 single-seaters should probably be able to recover the lost downforce caused by the floors being raised, but it is possible they will even be faster than the 2022 challengers.
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However, it still remains to be understood how differently the changes will impact the individual single-seaters based on the basic concept. While on the one hand the new cars could suffer from a proportionally greater loss of downforce, on the other hand the higher floor clearance could reduce their sensitivity to porpoising, guaranteeing greater freedom of set-up and rewarding the concept of low ground clearance. “I think this will keep the rim off the ground in high speed sections and I think in general it will help most teams who run their cars very low,” Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott recently said in an interview for to the editorial staff of Racecar Engineering. However, the actual impact of the new regulations on the track competitiveness will only become clear at the first race of the 2023 Formula 1 season in Bahrain.
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