‘Total rubbish!’ - Horner dismisses Wolff’s flexi-floor complaints

The FIA will introduce tighter floor regulations for the Belgian Grand Prix following a meeting of the F1 Commission in Austria.

The new technical directive was introduced following safety car concerns about porpoising and bouncing on the straights in Baku after Lewis Hamilton struggled to get out of his Mercedes cockpit.

In recent weeks, speculation about flexible floors has come to light with a number of teams rumoured to have found a loophole in this area of the regulations.

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Currently, there is a 2mm tolerance of how much the floor plank can flex but some teams are rumoured to be exceeding that and thus having an aerodynamic benefit as they can run their cars closer to the ground.

With Mercedes wanting to get back into contention for race wins, Wolff admitted that they are disappointed the directive isn’t going to be in place for France as originally planned.

“Yeah I think so, Wolff replied when asked if he thought rival teams were circumnavigating the rules. Well I don’t know [who]. I haven’t been able to squeeze the skids of certain teams. We are looking at our competitors. 

“Probably I would have wished that the TD comes in a little bit earlier but it is what it is, it comes in at Spa and after Spa we won’t see that anymore.”

Horner was then asked about Wolff’s aforementioned comments, making a sly dig that the German is “referring to cars that are around him at the moment”, referencing Mercedes fighting in the midfield at times this season.

“That is total rubbish, total rubbish! We are getting issues mixed up here, Horner added. “Maybe [Wolff] is referring to cars that are around him at the moment. I have no idea. We have absolutely no issues or concerns on our floor.”

Horner once again questioned the FIA’s intervention, particularly as porpoising wasn’t an issue at last weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

“The technical directive is focused on bouncing, porpoising, which only certain cars have struggled with,” Horner explained. “It is due for further discussion in the technical working group, which is the correct forum for it. Because, as we saw at Silverstone, no cars were really affected by it.

“Is it the duty of the competitor to make sure the car is safe? Or the duty of the FIA to make sure the competitor runs their car safely?”