“We are better prepared,” Alpine head says team have found the ideal solution to F1’s porpoising troubles


“We are better prepared,” Alpine head says team have found the ideal solution to F1’s porpoising troubles

Alpine F1

The new regulation 2022 cars have been severely challenged by the phenomenon of ‘Porpoising‘.Porpoising refers to the bouncing motion of the car on its suspension seen mainly on the straights due to restricted airflow under the body of the cars. But Alpine seem to have found a solution to the troubles.

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Teams like Ferrari and Mclaren showed great pace during the Pre-season tests in Barcelona and Bahrain but suffered a lot due to the porpoising. Even Mercedes claimed they are yet to understand the car and are learning how to cope with the issues.

Alpine’s sporting director Alan Permane has stated the french team have found their solution with which they can “switch that on and off” porpoising. Permane has opened up about the upgrades they conducted in order to control the bouncing of the car.

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Alpine can switch that on and off bounciness of car

Alpine F1 team
Alpine F1 team

Alpine A522 ran the initial car during the Pre-season testing in Barcelona but failed to address the aero issue and were lacking mileage due to reliability issues. With added upgrades added to the car, the team ran a better car which Alan Permane said the team executed “pretty much flawlessly.” 

Permane said “The porpoising and bouncing we talk about, we can switch that on and off. We know what makes that happen, what stops it. I’m not sure we fully know whether we want it, whether it’s quicker in some settings or not quick and we should live with it. We are significantly better prepared after these last two days than we were when we left Barcelona.”

He added “But we did get some settings where Fernando [Alonso] said ‘I wouldn’t be able to race like this’. So I think if you look at other cars, you can see that the Ferrari was at some points really, really bouncing. We’ve got a much better handle on that now. We played with all sorts of things on suspension stiffnesses and springs and rollbars and cambers and toes and ran through sweeps of different things.”

Teams are expected to make more improvements to their cars ahead of the coming weekend. The 2022 Bahrain GP marks the official start of the racing season and fans will be hoping for another dramatic season. The Race weekend begins on Friday, March 18 with the practice session with the main race taking place on Sunday, March 20.

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