Ferrari and McLaren find solution in Barcelona to stop porpoising

It was one of the topics of conversation in Barcelona, the jumping up of the car at high speed. 'Porpoising' it is called, and it means that the car jumps up and down when there is a lot of pressure on the car. Almost all teams suffer from it, while two teams seem to have found a solution.

On the first day of testing all the teams seemed to suffer from bouncing on the straights, the two days that followed showed a clear difference between the cars on the straights. Adrian Newey, technical director of Red Bull Racing, explained the dilemma the teams are currently facing.

Teams struggle with bounce

"It's not difficult to solve the problem. It's mainly difficult not to lose any lap time with that solution," Newey explained to German Auto, Motor und Sport. That's what teams are currently struggling with, but two teams seem to have found a solution. Indeed, according to Mercedes, McLaren has found a way to counteract the bouncing without losing speed.

They have done this by creating a route for the air when there is a lot of pressure. Other teams also see that McLaren has made a move in that regard. Haas also made similar changes after the first day of testing, which greatly reduced the bouncing.

Ferrari finds alternative solution

At Ferrari, they solved it differently. There they set the car a bit higher on the asphalt. Normally you lose time, but they have adjusted their suspension accordingly. So they gain all the lost time back in the slow corners. This was also the case in Barcelona, where they made up for all the time lost in the last sector.

In the coming weeks, the other teams will also look at how they are going to solve the problems around the bouncing of the car. In Bahrain, we will see if they have opted for a concept like Ferrari's, or if, like McLaren, they are going to see if they can get the airflow past the car in a strategic way.