2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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johnny comelately
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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As to how Newey and his engineers managed to find a solution so quickly, the designer understandably doesn't want to go into detail, but he gives a very small hint: he points out that there is more than one airflow under the floor and that it is important to make them work together.
https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/109732/n ... oblem.html

saviour stivala
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Re: Mercedes W13

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AriaanGert wrote:
03 May 2022, 18:11
in the interview on the race:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/newey-in ... etirement/
he says he did the suspension and some bits and pieces.

I am in the group that thinks the magic is in the suspension and he is sending the rest in the wrong direction.
Active suspension would yes have been the magic to porpoising problem, but active suspension is banned so the suspension system allowed by the rules cannot by itself be the magic touch. Porpoising trick is to minimize it to a point where it hurts lap time the least. Those cut-outs in front of the rear wheels bleeds air out from under the car especially when floor is trying to seals with the track.

Andi76
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Re: Mercedes W13

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AriaanGert wrote:
03 May 2022, 18:11
in the interview on the race:
https://the-race.com/formula-1/newey-in ... etirement/
he says he did the suspension and some bits and pieces.

I am in the group that thinks the magic is in the suspension and he is sending the rest in the wrong direction.
As porpoising is influenced by many things, i think its more likely that its a combination of things, not only the suspension as the "magic-solution". I also think that Mercedes would have been able to solve it already, if it would be about the suspension "only".

But anyway if you read this Newey interview closely, there are three very interesting parts that shows some of the areas why, in my opinion, Ferrari and Red Bull are the fastest cars and why Mercedes has a lot of problems:

The first thing is that he says the new cars tend to be more front-tyre limited than the "old" ones. In 1998 with the introduction of the grooved tyres, it was pretty much the same. McLaren and Ferrari used different concepts and back in that area it had a lot to do with lowering the CoG, front stiffness and weight distribution. Ferrari in particular pushed as much weight as possible to the front and put more downforce to the front and also added stiffness to the front, but anyway - having experienced a regulation change with similar implications, Neweys experience certainly helped a lot, as did Byrnes experience at Ferrari.

The second one is that he said there is more than one airflow under the car and making them work together is important. Of course this surely is no secret, but having experience how to achieve the best way of how to do this to extract the best performance, is probably another reason why Red Bull and Ferrari gained a performance advantage from Neweys and Byrnes experience. Newey suggests, that Ferrari, as Red Bull, have considered purpoising during the design of the car, but intentionally decided to accept a higher amplitude of porpoising and that being just a different approach to his one: "I guess they feel thats the fastest way around, so you trade a bit of driver comfort and initial braking performance.". By replying to the question if he had thought going into that direction as an experiment with "your set-up is driven by your aero-map, so what works on one car won't work on another", i think he clearly says that he believes that Ferrari, too, has considered porpoising in the design-phase already but just handled it in a different way. As Ferrari is not loosing lap-time, this sounds very reasonable, and again Neweys and Byrnes experience probably helped both teams a lot. Experience with ground effect cars helps a lot and that it makes a difference, is proven also by McLaren. Their rapid recovery is not a conicidence. With Neil Oatley they have one of four engineers left in F1 who already designed ground effect cars in the early 80's. Mercedes does not have a single engineer with experience in that regard.

I do not want to put sucess down to one person as F1 is about a team- but with a big regulation change like that, the experience of people like Newey and Byrne cannot be rated high enough and is a huge advantage.

The third interesting detail, i think, is that Newey says he may will "trying to get in a new position where i can be involved as an overview - which i think is what Rory Byrne does at Ferrari now." Clearly describing Byrnes contribution on the F1-75 and that he directed the way to go and the concept of the car. But thats only interesting in terms of contributions of certain individuals. One may be interested in that, one may be not.

Anyway - i think that Newey and Byrnes experience, next to their genius, not only with ground effect cars, but with with front-tyre limited regulations, is a major reason why Ferrari and Red Bull are much faster than any other team. And why they will probably keep their advantage for 2022. Mercedes lack someone like Newey or Byrne. They have great engineers without a doubt, but no experienced ones in relation to ground effect cars and regulation changes like that. Thats why they basically stayed with their "old" concept of "micro-sidepods" and going extreme with this concept, instead of a new one. Also the dominant team, history proves that, tends to take less risk in that regard. If you look closely, the five teams with experienced engineers in that regard have improved - Red Bull, Ferrari, Alfa, Haas(because of Ferrari) and McLaren, while the teams without experienced engineer did not improve - Mercedes, Aston Martin, Williams. Not very technical at the end, just some thoughts, but i think sometimes there also should be some things like that in such a forum.

But anyway - thanks for sharing the link to this interview. Interesting read.
Last edited by Andi76 on 04 May 2022, 09:02, edited 1 time in total.

johnny comelately
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Wet and dry porpoising....

Andi76
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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An analysis about the different "porpoising-solutions" of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Its in Italian, unfortunately, but Google Translator makes it.... understandable. With some guessing :D

https://www.salastamparacing.com/tech-f ... s-ferrari/

Starbuckle486
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Thinking about it I'm not that surprised the Mercedes is porpoising more than say the Red Bull.

Sure, their floor is probably more "exposed" and harder to make really stiff - but if it was all about stiffness I'm quite sure Mercedes would have solved the issue already. Surely a few kilos of carbon fiber down low would be worth it if it got rid of their porpoising and "unlocked the performance" of the car.

Instead I think it has more to do with the sealing of the floor. My thinking is that if you have a good sealing the performance of the floor won't change as much with changing ride height. Less dependency on the ride height will lower the amound of porpoising.

So, how do you seal the floor on the sides? Outwash from underneath and/or outwash from above the floor but close to the floor is one way. The first third of the side of the floor the teams seem to handle pretty much the same way, using the strakes underneath the floor to create outwash. The mid section is treated differently, with Red Bull and maybe Alpine the most obvious examples of plenty of outwash down low from the top side of the floor. The last third or quarter a few other tricks are used, like the skates.

Mercedes on the other hand create little outwash on the side of the floor. They probably have an enormous potential from their floor since they hace such a free flow of good air over the diffuser/beam wing, but once their ride hide gets too high the floor stops working, sucking air in from the sides, and once they get close to the ground the floor turns super effective, gluing the car to the ground temporarily.

So how should Mercedes seal the floor better? This is where they are in a bit of a catch 22. They can create outwash down low over the edge of the floor, but then they will ruin some of the airflow over the diffuser/edge wing.

I wouldn't be surprised if more teams go the Alpine/Red Bull way, and I think Alfa Romeo already did. Mercedes going back to their first iteration won't make much difference I think, that concept didn't look like it created any more outwash over the edge of floor "mid car".

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organic
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Kyle has made a video about porpoising

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Stu
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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I’ll watch that in the morning, the guy seems to be very ‘on point’ with observations.
Perspective - Understanding that sometimes the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

johnny comelately
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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At the 9:30 mark is a comparative porpoising graph from Barcelona
Russell Versus Verstappen Battle | Jolyon Palmer's F1 TV Analysis | 2022 Spanish Grand Prix

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Ryar
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Hakuna Matata!

mzso
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Good, sort of. This only hinders those who did it wrong.
On the other hand it will likely kill Ferrari's chances of competing, and they already dropped back because of their unreliability.

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chrisc90
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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Im looking forward to how the FIA will come to a level that will become the benchmark. This will become enforceable in FP3 when the teams know the limit.

The question is, how they get to such mark... Do they just average out all of the data they have collected and set it at that. Will it become track dependant due the variation of bump etc in the surface.

I believe the FIA will have all the data from each race weekend so far and can converge with teams regarding a 'safer' level.

I am looking forward to FP3 and qualifying where those teams that might have 'more' porposing are caught out by the higher limits and have to make bigger setup changes going into quali for losing time in FP3 due to car changes. Could definitely spice things up a bit if teams are caught out.


However, im pleased that the FIA hasnt given in to some teams claims for things like active suspension etc at this stage in the season. Not only would it be near enough impossible due to budgeting etc, the decision keeps it a level playing field at the minute as the rules/regulations havent been changed, its just a case of you have to adjust ride height if your not doing well in terms of bouncing.
Mess with the Bull - you get the horns.

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siskue2005
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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chrisc90 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:05
Im looking forward to how the FIA will come to a level that will become the benchmark. This will become enforceable in FP3 when the teams know the limit.

The question is, how they get to such mark... Do they just average out all of the data they have collected and set it at that. Will it become track dependant due the variation of bump etc in the surface.

I believe the FIA will have all the data from each race weekend so far and can converge with teams regarding a 'safer' level.

I am looking forward to FP3 and qualifying where those teams that might have 'more' porposing are caught out by the higher limits and have to make bigger setup changes going into quali for losing time in FP3 due to car changes. Could definitely spice things up a bit if teams are caught out.


However, im pleased that the FIA hasnt given in to some teams claims for things like active suspension etc at this stage in the season. Not only would it be near enough impossible due to budgeting etc, the decision keeps it a level playing field at the minute as the rules/regulations havent been changed, its just a case of you have to adjust ride height if your not doing well in terms of bouncing.
If people think this is backfiring for Merc, then they are mistaken... this is exactly what they wanted. They know this year is done, but this has forced the fia to change the rules for 2023. Hence I guess they have achieved what they set out to do.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... /10323186/
"And the FIA has indeed suggested that efforts will now be made with the teams to help find ways to eradicate it.

The governing body wants a meeting with the teams to ‘define measures that will reduce the propensity of cars to exhibit such phenomena in the medium term.’

The idea is for F1 to move beyond the need for a maximum limit of bouncing and instead offering tweaks to the F1 rules to help banish the risk of porpoising for the new generation of cars completely.

This could be delivered through more freedom of suspension technology, even a return to F1 of active suspension, or perhaps even making mass dampers legal again.

It is the lack of such suspension tools amid the current 2022 rules that has been a factor in Mercedes struggling to tame the W13 – so any assistance on this front longer term would certainly be welcome to the German car manufacturer as it bids to get back to the front of the grid."

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chrisc90
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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siskue2005 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:20
chrisc90 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:05
Im looking forward to how the FIA will come to a level that will become the benchmark. This will become enforceable in FP3 when the teams know the limit.

The question is, how they get to such mark... Do they just average out all of the data they have collected and set it at that. Will it become track dependant due the variation of bump etc in the surface.

I believe the FIA will have all the data from each race weekend so far and can converge with teams regarding a 'safer' level.

I am looking forward to FP3 and qualifying where those teams that might have 'more' porposing are caught out by the higher limits and have to make bigger setup changes going into quali for losing time in FP3 due to car changes. Could definitely spice things up a bit if teams are caught out.


However, im pleased that the FIA hasnt given in to some teams claims for things like active suspension etc at this stage in the season. Not only would it be near enough impossible due to budgeting etc, the decision keeps it a level playing field at the minute as the rules/regulations havent been changed, its just a case of you have to adjust ride height if your not doing well in terms of bouncing.
If people think this is backfiring for Merc, then they are mistaken... this is exactly what they wanted. They know this year is done, but this has forced the fia to change the rules for 2023. Hence I guess they have achieved what they set out to do.
I think that depends if they come up with a solution though. I mean they might introduce these limits, see that they can be adhered to whilst still maintaining good racing and decide that they stick around for 2023.
From memory, the FIA article says they will work with teams for ideas going forward, so imagine there will be some teams wanting X, some teams wanting Y and some teams wanting neither.
Mess with the Bull - you get the horns.

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siskue2005
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Re: 2022 cars 'porpoising' at high speed

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chrisc90 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:24
siskue2005 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:20
chrisc90 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:05
Im looking forward to how the FIA will come to a level that will become the benchmark. This will become enforceable in FP3 when the teams know the limit.

The question is, how they get to such mark... Do they just average out all of the data they have collected and set it at that. Will it become track dependant due the variation of bump etc in the surface.

I believe the FIA will have all the data from each race weekend so far and can converge with teams regarding a 'safer' level.

I am looking forward to FP3 and qualifying where those teams that might have 'more' porposing are caught out by the higher limits and have to make bigger setup changes going into quali for losing time in FP3 due to car changes. Could definitely spice things up a bit if teams are caught out.


However, im pleased that the FIA hasnt given in to some teams claims for things like active suspension etc at this stage in the season. Not only would it be near enough impossible due to budgeting etc, the decision keeps it a level playing field at the minute as the rules/regulations havent been changed, its just a case of you have to adjust ride height if your not doing well in terms of bouncing.
If people think this is backfiring for Merc, then they are mistaken... this is exactly what they wanted. They know this year is done, but this has forced the fia to change the rules for 2023. Hence I guess they have achieved what they set out to do.
I think that depends if they come up with a solution though. I mean they might introduce these limits, see that they can be adhered to whilst still maintaining good racing and decide that they stick around for 2023.
From memory, the FIA article says they will work with teams for ideas going forward, so imagine there will be some teams wanting X, some teams wanting Y and some teams wanting neither.
The solutions suggested/rumored are these

siskue2005 wrote:
16 Jun 2022, 21:20
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/why- ... /10323186/
"And the FIA has indeed suggested that efforts will now be made with the teams to help find ways to eradicate it.

The governing body wants a meeting with the teams to ‘define measures that will reduce the propensity of cars to exhibit such phenomena in the medium term.’

The idea is for F1 to move beyond the need for a maximum limit of bouncing and instead offering tweaks to the F1 rules to help banish the risk of porpoising for the new generation of cars completely.

This could be delivered through more freedom of suspension technology, even a return to F1 of active suspension, or perhaps even making mass dampers legal again.

It is the lack of such suspension tools amid the current 2022 rules that has been a factor in Mercedes struggling to tame the W13 – so any assistance on this front longer term would certainly be welcome to the German car manufacturer as it bids to get back to the front of the grid.
"
The cheapest and easier way to solve the proposing for 2023
1. Suspension changes - allow the various advanced things they were already running in 2021 ( no particular change is racing, but cheapest as everyone had very advanced suspension - can also buy from other teams)
2. Suspesnion changes - allow a standard active suspension (which will be good as this will mean more close racing)
3. Floor changes like reduce the effect of venturi by making it smaller (poor close racing)
4. Allow mass dampers - cheapest and easier to use ( no particular change is racing)

So these are the possible changes for 2023... you don't need unanimous approval from all teams for a rule change for next year.