The FIA even authorized the use of an extra support in the cars at the weekend in Canada, but Otmar Szafnauer didn't look kindly on the update, stating that the gain of advantage that one team would have over the others was against the regulation
The FIA's (International Automobile Federation) decision to establish a technical guideline to control the torque of Formula 1 cars continues to cause disagreement among teams in the paddock. Even without determining how this intervention will be made, the world's governing body of motorsport even allowed teams to use an extra support in the floor of their cars in the Canadian GP in order to soften the porpoising, but Alpine was not very pleased, saying that the advantage that the update would provide could be protested for going against the regulation.
During the weekend in Montreal, according to a report in the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull were surprised that the extra bracing was so quickly present on the Mercedes car in free practice, since the directive to control the kicks had been approved in a very short time - hinting, therefore, that the change was already scheduled.
Although the Brackley-based team argued that some members stayed on base preparing the update in time to be introduced for the activities at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, Mercedes decided to withdraw the support as it did not think it would make any difference - and also to avoid protests. Otmar Szafnauer, in fact, was quite incisive when commenting on the case.
"As far as the process is concerned, this is a technical guideline - and technical guidelines, as everyone knows, are not in the regulations," said the Alpine boss. "We probably shouldn't ride with that in qualifying and in the race. And if teams brought these brackets, I believe that maybe that can be evaluated afterwards and protested. It's against the current regulations," he added.
When asked if the A522 had such brackets, Szafnauer denied. "We definitely don't. And if you have an extra strut, you can make the car stiffer, lower the height and get some advantage," he concluded.
The controversy surrounding porpoising gained full force after the Azerbaijan GP, and that's when the FIA then decided to intervene in some way to set limits on the vertical oscillations of cars on the track. In Canada, the FIA collected data to determine what an acceptable level of vertical movement would be, and could even require a car to be elevated by at least 10 millimeters. In extreme situations, the team could even be prevented from racing, if a danger to the health of the drivers is found.