The Bouncing Cars Need To Be Fixed

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The force change by the FIA to the shape of the floor has created the porpoising effect. The aerodynamics funnel the air through the grooves underneath dropping the car onto the back wheels which makes the car bounce. The faster you drive the more pronounced the bouncing becomes. There is serious accident waiting to happen if this is not fixed quickly and the FIA is at fault.

The FIA have stepped in to help resolve the porpoising issue we have seen with the Formula One cars this year. This issue was created by the FIA when they bought in new compulsory chassis changes in order to improve overtaking.

At the start of the season all the teams were bitching about the bouncy ride as the chassis is that much harder due to the stiffening of the undercarriage. This didn't affect all the teams as seriously as some and now with the FIA stepping in those ones are unhappy. If you are winning you are less likely to complain even if you were complaining 6 races ago. Those teams are keeping quiet as any changes now could still jeopardize their chances of winning the title.

I think it is a safety issue and goes further than a team or teams being in contention for the World title. We all know why this happened as the rule changes were to put an end to the Mercedes dominance. Mercedes were the masters of down force and with that now removed they are one of the teams struggling with the new enforced package.

I say a safety issue as George Russel mentioned he could see the pit wall board, but couldn't read the numbers. This is an information board that updates them and gives them time splits between them and other cars. Imagine not being able to read vital information due to the the car bobbing up and down whilst doing speeds in excess of 320 km/h. The faster you drive the bigger the problem becomes and that is not what the sport is about.

The FIA are looking into the problem and are not there to fix this but will look at helping resolve the problem by allowing for more flex in the undercarriage. Each circuit will be different and thus the number of pins used to tighten the undercarriage creating the rigidity will change accordingly.

The last thing the FIA needs right now is to lose 2 or 3 teams per race due to safety regulations. Lewis Hamilton is already suffering from back issues and can only imagine how bad this really is. He couldn't even get out of his car after the Baku race and that must also be a safety concern let alone a health risk.

There are 20 cars that start each race and losing 2 or 3 teams would leave 14 cars racing and would have an impact on the sport and leave spectators short changed. Typically Red Bull cannot see this as they once again are only thinking of themselves. There day will come when they have a problem and we will never hear the end of their whining.

Formula One is meant to be the pinnacle of motor sport through R&D and should never have got to this point. The problem is this issue is not highlighted in the wind tunnel and teams would have no idea of the underlying issue. Teams that had a different set up with a higher ride height last season have definitely benefited from this rule change.

The rule change was meant to bring a new type of racing with more equally matched cars making overtaking easier to achieve and in all honesty has only changed the pecking order. The time gaps between the cars is so significant that racing has become even more boring as the drag reduction system is only making for long trains of cars nullifying any overtaking advantage. Hopefully this will all be fixed before the end of this season so at least maybe we will have decent exciting racing next year.