{"id":385002,"date":"2026-01-01T16:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T16:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385002\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T16:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T16:04:10","slug":"fia-admits-to-missing-key-flaw-during-ground-effect-f1-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385002\/","title":{"rendered":"FIA admits to missing key flaw during ground-effect F1 era"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FIA single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, has admitted that the sport\u2019s governing body missed a key flaw in the Formula 1<\/a> cars of the ground-effect era.<\/p>\n

The four-year cycle of the cars came to an end at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last month, bringing to a close a maligned period for the sport.<\/p>\n

Its cessation brought reflection from many drivers that were in no way positive, with marquee figureheads like Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and Max Verstappen<\/a> delivering scathing rebukes.<\/p>\n

Two big areas that were brought under scrutiny were the extreme porpoising that came about strongly in the first season, as well as the extreme plank wear.<\/p>\n

The latter led to teams being forced to increase their ride height, which could lead to miscalculations and, therefore, disqualifications, such as with Ferrari and McLaren in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the optimum [ride height] of the cars moved so much lower was a miss in the 2022 regulations,\u201d Tombazis admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that we missed \u2014 and not only us but also the teams. In all discussions, nobody raised that issue. It was something that became obvious very, very close to the start of the championship, when it was too late to change the regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe initial porpoising, which hasn\u2019t totally disappeared but has obviously improved massively, was also something that had not been anticipated. I wish we had done better there.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Tombazis rejected the possibility that teams would have suffered less if the regulations had been more stringent on suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t believe that suspension changes would have had a first-order effect,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would perhaps have given them a [different] set of options, but we don\u2019t think the simplification of the suspension rules would have had a first-order effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NikolasThe FIA single seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, has admitted the porpoising and plank wear flaws were missed in the ground-effect era of F1<\/p>\n

FIA cautious but confident porpoising to be a thing of the past in F1 2026<\/p>\n

Tombazis was pressed on the issue of whether porpoising will pose a risk of being present within the 2026 cars<\/a>, which boast different aerodynamic characteristics.<\/p>\n

But he stated that, due to the nature of the floor on the \u201926 challengers, such a problem should not rear its head again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it is very unlikely to have similar characteristics because of a much flatter floor,\u201d he said. \u201cHow much the downforce increases as you go lower is not as pronounced with this car as it was in last year\u2019s car. We believe that will reduce the chance of porpoising.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Tombazis added caution, and failed to completely rule it out until the cars hit the track for the first time, initially in Barcelona later this month, and then in Bahrain for two official pre-season testing schedules in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the cars run for the very first time and have some issue, I wouldn\u2019t exclude it,\u201d he conceded. \u201cBut I would say that the rules are inherently\u00a0less in that direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo given the teams did a pretty good job of solving the issue with the previous generation of cars, it should be a much easier problem next time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013 Oscar Piastri reveals 2026 mindset after narrow F1 title defeat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FIA single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, has admitted that the sport\u2019s governing body missed a key flaw in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,837,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-385002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-fia","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}