The Aston Martin Formula 1 team has shifted the position of its floor stay in order to address porpoising issues that have been affecting the performance of its AMR22.
This season, the Silverstone-based team has found itself on the back foot, with the performance of its AMR22 being severely hampered by excessive bouncing on the straights.
At the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, chief technical officer Andrew Green said that the team had to elevate its ride height so high to stop the porpoising that it was costing them up to 0.75 seconds every lap. It is now the only team in the league without a point this season, and it is still looking for ideas to aid it.
The team believes that a lot of elements are combining to generate the bouncing issues, with floor flexing being one of them.
Aston Martin has now modified the position of its floor stay ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to assist change the area that is strengthened.
“The lower location has moved forwards to reinforce that area of the floor and restrict deflection to lessen ground contact,” the team revealed.
Aston Martin, according to Lance Stroll, is suffering more from porpoising than other teams because its floor appears to be more brittle, preventing it from running as low as certain competitors.
“The lower you can run these cars, the better they are for downforce, but then there’s this porpoising,” Stroll explained.
“So it’s been pretty bad for us on some occasions. Generally, I think we’ve been limited with the floor breaking.”
“So we have to kind of watch how much we porpoise for those reasons. It looks like the Ferraris and Mercedes can porpoise more than us,” the Canadian added.
“So I guess maybe they have a floor that is more robust and isn’t as fragile as ours, potentially.”
Aston Martin has reverted to its season-opening standard of halo-mounted vane and mirror sidepod stay, in addition to the floor stay alteration. The team believes the method is better for the Imola circuit’s higher downforce needs.
