Ferrari admits teams underestimated potential for new cars to suffer from ‘porpoising’. F1 outfits underestimated ‘porpoising’ potential, says Ferrari.

Several teams have encountered some problems during the first two days of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona with the consequences of ‘porpoising’ – where the car bounces up and down on its suspension after it hits a certain speed on the straights.

Porpoising was something that was commonplace during the previous ground effect era of the sport and it is created by the under floor downforce sucking the car down more and more as it accelerates down the straights – before the airflow suddenly stalls through either a change in air pressure or the floor hitting the ground.

As a result, the car suddenly loses the extra downforce and the car briefly rises up again, before it once again starts being sucked down to begin the cycle again. This of course makes it uncomfortable for drivers, but at the same time represents a big issue in high speed corners if it strikes and cars suddenly lose downforce.

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This situation was seen in the first days of testing in Barcelona and Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto feels it is something few teams had anticipated after their development work on CFD and in windtunnels.

“I think most of us at least underestimated the problem, in terms of [being] on track and bouncing more than expected” – the Ferrari boss explained -“When you’re setting these cars up with the ground [effect] floor, the situation it’s different. It’s a learning process.” – he added.

Mattia Binotto confirmed that getting rid of the porpoising entirely is not a difficult task and could be done just by raising the ride height. But the situation is complicated by teams knowing that this would also lead to loss of performance and everyone is looking for gains by running as close to the ground as possible – which then leaves them exposed to the issue returning.

“I think that solving it can be quite straightforward. Optimising the performance, because it should not be a compromise, you should try to avoid the bouncing by getting the most of the performance of the car. But that could be a less easy exercise. I am pretty sure that at some stage the team will get to the solution. How long it will take? The ones that will get there sooner will have an advantage at the start of the season.” – Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto concluded.