Kevin Magnussen said ahead of this Belgian Grand Prix that “porpoising” is no longer an issued as the FIA’s Technical Directive comes into place fully this weekend.
The bouncing phenomenon was the cause of much debate within the Formula 1 community this year, as some teams struggled more than the others to get on top of it with their cars, Mercedes being the most high-profile victim of the issue.
The FIA have introduced TD039 to clamp down in this problem, and given the teams time until this weekend’s race in Spa to get their cars ready for it, as the governing body looks to monitor the vertical oscillations in the cars making sure none of them are a safety hazard to the drivers.
Previewing the Belgian Grand Prix, and asked how he expected his Haas VF-22 to be affected by the new TD, Magnussen said: “I don’t feel that porpoising is an issue anymore.
“It was certainly an issue at the beginning of the season but very quickly we made changes to the car to address this issue. We had to sacrifice a bit of performance to get the porpoising sorted but then gradually we’ve been able to build back that performance without the porpoising returning.
Teams can solve porpoising if they want to
“I do think it’s something that teams can solve if they really want to, but it does come at a cost performance-wise but we’ve done that and many other teams have done it, so the teams who haven’t done it yet will have to,” Magnussen added.
Teammate Mick Schumacher reflected on the matter as well saying: “I think we’ve all been quite surprised by the issue that we found at the beginning of the year and our car has improved a lot since then.
“The worst occurrence of the porpoising we’ve found so far was in Baku, and I think that was the same for every other team as well but since then actually it’s been quite good.
“We’ve been on tracks that are smooth and there is no longer physical pain involved with the porpoising but obviously there’s a limit to it and we’re at the limit which I think every team is.
“I think we’re among the teams that have the least bouncing, there are teams that are suffering from it a lot more than us,” he concluded.
Haas have run a virtually unchanged car for the first part of the season, and only introduced a major upgrade package on Magnussen’s car last time out in Hungary, but according to team boss Guenther Steiner, both drivers will enjoy upgraded cars in Spa.
Two upgraded Haas VF-22’s in Spa
“Both cars will have the upgrade package,” Steiner said in the team’s race preview. “We had one kit ready before the shutdown so we said we’ll put it on one car to collect some data so when we’re back, we have that data and now we can already work on the set-up, getting out in Spa straightaway.”
As for how the upgraded performed, he added: “We could see that the on-car numbers were corelating to the wind tunnel numbers, which is always a good sign, and now we have to get the best out of it in lap time.
“Before the shutdown, the team looked at the data closely and will do more now they’re back from the break but at the moment it looks good and hopefully we can better our lap time,” he revealed.
Asked what the team’s objectives for the remainder of the season are, Steiner said: “We haven’t readjusted, we are just back to where we wanted to be at the beginning of the season, now being in seventh.
“Hopefully we can keep this position in the championship, that’s battle number one. Battle number two is trying to get to sixth, but let’s see.
“We will always do our best and try to improve or at least not fall back,” the Haas team principal insisted.
Haas currently sit in seventh in the Constructors’ Championship, 17 points shy of Alfa Romeo in sixth with nine races remaining this season.