28/02/2022
NEWS STORY
Ferrari, one of the teams most affected by the porpoising phenomenon, appears to have got on top of the issue, according to team boss Mattia Binotto.
While the likes of Mercedes, Red Bull and Alfa Romeo admitted to problems with the phenomenon, there were times over the first couple of days of testing when the effect on the Ferrari was clearly visible as either Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz headed down the main straight.
At the start of the test, Binotto admitted that teams had been caught out by the phenomenon not witnessed since the ground effect era of the late 70s, early 80s,
"I think most of us at least underestimated the problem, in terms of being on track and bouncing more than expected," he said. "When you're setting these cars up with the ground effect floor, the situation it's different. It's a learning process."
However, he was confident the issue could be resolved.
"I think solving it can be quite straightforward," said the Italian. "Optimising the performance, because it should not be a compromise, you should try to avoid the bouncing by getting the most of the performance of the car. I am pretty sure that at some stage the team will get to the solution. How long it will take? The ones that will get there sooner will have an advantage at the start of the season."
Well, by close of play on Friday, despite the fact that neither of his drivers improved on their previous best times, Binotto was satisfied Ferrari was on top of the problem.
"It was an issue but it's not anymore," he told reporters. "Somehow we are managing the situation.
"If we're looking at this on Thursday afternoon and earlier on Friday, I think we are bouncing a lot less," he added.
"We are happy," he continued, "first because I think we have done a lot of laps, we have learned from the car, collecting data.
"But if you look at the performance of the lap time it is too early days," he added. "We are not running all in the same conditions, and I am expecting other cars to be very fast.
"More for us was to be consistent running, and really try to collect as much data as we could," he explained. "There are still a lot of issues to address or potential to extract."
Though Lewis Hamilton topped the overall timesheets, Ferrari completed the most laps, leaving many suggesting that the Italian team could be this season's (prancing) dark horse.
"We will be back in Maranello before we to go to Bahrain," said Binotto, "so we have a few days really to look at all the data and try somehow to optimise the current car."
Check out our testing galleries here.