Racecar Engineering

The porpoise effect

Motorsport-wise, one of the key problems that has emerged from early season testing of the new generation Formula 1 cars is so-called porpoising. Given that myself and ChassisSim customers have dealt with this to some degree over the years, I’ve had a wry giggle at the number of lay punters out there who think this is a new thing.

Porpoising… is low-to-high frequency oscillation in the pitch mode of the sprung mass of the vehicle

Porpoising has been around for a good while now, and is one of the things that’s always lurking around the corner if you run a high-downforce racecar. In this article we’ll discuss what it is and, more importantly, how you can deal with it.

First things first. If you insist on running a high-downforce racecar that is passive, the risk of porpoising is the price you pay. It doesn’t matter whether you’re

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