F1 teams set for FIA meeting over porpoising solutions

The FIA’s intervention on safety grounds, to try to eradicate cars bouncing, triggered huge controversy over the Canadian Grand Prix weekend.

Many F1 teams were annoyed at the late timing of the announcement, and there was confusion among a number of competitors about whether or not new bouncing limits were supposed to be in place for the weekend.

Furthermore, the way in which the FIA only issued a technical directive, rather than formally changed the rules, prompted talk of a protest if Mercedes went ahead and ran with a second floor stay.

The clash of opinions up and down the pitlane over the matter reached a head in a team principals’ meeting on Saturday, when Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was left furious at what he felt was "‘pitiful" behaviour from fellow bosses in ganging up on him.

With no consensus reached between teams in Montreal, the FIA will now try to move things forward when its single-seater technical director Nikolas Tombazis meets with F1 technical directors later this week.

It is hoped that moving discussions away from the heat of competition over a race weekend will allow for a more considered approach in trying to put solutions in place.

The topics of discussion are likely to involve analysis of the data that the FIA gathered on vertical oscillations over the Montreal weekend, and whether or not it is feasible to try to impose limits at some point in the future.

Mercedes W13 floor comparison

Photo by: Giorgio Piola

The FIA also wants to gather information from teams about potential changes to the technical regulations for 2023 that could give them more scope to cure the porpoising issues longer term.

This could include aero changes, revised suspension systems or even the unbanning of tools like mass