The FIA has stood firm on its pledge to tackle porpoising in Formula 1 this season despite opposition from some teams.
The phenomenon has affected all 20 cars to some extent this season, as a result of the return of ground-effect dynamics. The change was made to help cars to retain downforce and promote closer and more exciting racing, but uncontrollable bouncing was an unfortunate side-effect.
Some teams got a handle on the issue very quickly, including Red Bull who appeared to be barely affected. In contrast, Mercedes took a long time to come up with any solution for the issue, leading to a lack of performance and intense back pain for Lewis Hamilton.
Ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, the FIA announced a technical directive in which the governing body pledged to introduce a metric to measure porpoising, and a limit to how much cars are allowed to bounce in the interests of driver health and safety. The implementation has been delayed twice, and is currently scheduled for the Belgian Grand Prix weekend at the end of August.
But that did not go down well with everybody in the paddock. Red Bull and Ferrari in particular are opposed to interference from the FIA, as they say it is unfair on the teams that have got a handle on the issue by themselves.
It appears their opposition has made little difference, though, as the governing body doubled-down on the project. At a technical advisory meeting with F1 team bosses on Thursday, FIA officials made it clear that they will not be backing down on their plans.
"It is the responsibility and the prerogative of the FIA to intervene for safety matters, and the reason the regulations allow such measures to be taken is precisely to allow decisions to be taken without being influenced by the competitive position each team may find themselves in," a statement read.
Porpoising has not been as prevalent in recent races, leading to suggestions that every team has now got a grip on the problem by themselves anyway. But FIA chiefs stated their belief that the lack of bouncing has been due to the nature of the circuits themselves, rather than any downforce changes made by individual teams.
"While the issue has been seemingly reduced in the last few races, they took place at circuits where the effect is expected to be lower than normal. Races where this effect is expected again to be higher will take place in the coming months," the statement added.
