A lot of discussions have been held and even some controversial accusations regarding the ability of 2022 Formula 1 cars to flex the skid blocks of the wooden plank under floor to avoid wear (the regulation allows the consumption of 1 mm compared to 10 mm thickness) and allow the cars to run lower to the ground in search of a greater aerodynamic load that gives a significant increase in performance.
The British media spoke of polyurethane foam capable of compressing itself with adaptive shapes, some other part of the media indicated to real springs mounted under the skid blocks capable of absorbing the roughness of the ground without wearing out the board. If this were the case, it is strange that the technical commissioners of the FIA did not intervene by declaring certain illegal solutions, banning those who would have used concepts totally outside the technical rules.
The feeling is that teams have reached a high level of innovation that makes it difficult to identify it and therefore becomes logical to ask ourselves if we will see important changes of the on track values of the single-seaters starting from the Belgian Grand Prix after the summer break, when the implementation of FIA’s latest anti-porpoising Technical Directive comes into effect.
The FIA has set itself two objectives: firstly, to reduce the risk of porpoising with an algorithm that will control the vertical bouncing of the chassis with the accelerometer placed in the body near the center of gravity. It is a sensor that was previously used to determine the forces that acted on a driver during a crash and which will now be more sensitive and will have to indicate who will pass the Aerodynamic Oscillation Metric (AOM), as explained by Franco Nugnes for Motorsport Italy.
In that case the car will have to be raised from the ground to reduce the phenomenon and report the values in the data established by the FIA: the telemetry channel that was reserved for Federation technicians, already from Paul Ricard will be open and visible to all teams, so that the technicians can evaluate the behavior of their car and make any corrections in time for the race at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in August.
But the big goal is to stop the skid block flexing, with the clear intention of slowing down Ferrari and Red Bull to allow the third top team, namely Mercedes, to get back in the fight. Toto Wolff showed total bewilderment and amazement when the FIA in the F1 Commission made official some data that had been collected, concealing that the Mercedes itself inspired these regulation changes that have nothing to do with safety.
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A great expectation has therefore been created for Belgium as if it could become a new beginning: it is reasonable to think that Ferrari and Red Bull will have to concede something in terms of lap time due to the most stringent checks, but how much performance will they lose and, above all, how much Mercedes will be able to get back into the fight to win at least one Grand Prix? All of this after Mercedes constantly finished 40 seconds behind the Ferrari F1-75 and Red Bull RB18 cars in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season.
The question for now is unanswered, but already at Paul Ricard we will see some adaptations that could indicate what the direction will be in the near future. According to rumors reported by Motorsport Italy, there are already teams working on flexibility of materials to re-propose certain regulation concepts at the limit in a different way. And, after all, this is the essence of Formula 1: pushing every idea, every component that makes up the car towards interpreting all the gray areas of the rules. The challenge, therefore, is only at the beginning …
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