Horner frustrated by cost of F1 rule change that was “probably not needed"

In a bid to eradicate the issues teams faced last year with the porpoising phenomenon, the FIA have pushed through changes for 2023 that have forced teams to raise the floor edges on their cars by 15mm. 

The FIA also intervened by enforcing a new technical directive midway through last season amid a flexi-floor saga in which Mercedes suspected that Red Bull and Ferrari were pushing the boundaries of the rules. 

Horner argued at the time it was unfair for the FIA to change the rules over the porpoising complaints just because certain teams - mainly Mercedes - had not got on top of the issue. 

By the end of 2022 porpoising was no longer a big problem and Horner reckons the decision to implement tweaks for the upcoming campaign could prove to be an expensive knee-jerk reaction. 

“I think we have to wait and see, the first snapshot will be the testing in Bahrain,” he told Auto Motor und Sport. 

“It’s a little bit strange, because obviously there was a big push to get all of this changed, and the changes came through around Spa last year.

“But by the end of the year, there was very little porpoising.”

Horner added: “My argument at the time was will it not just get sorted out, which it did.

“So we’ve gone through quite a lot of expense, for all the teams in a big regulation change that probably wasn’t needed.”

But Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater director, insists the decision to make further changes for 2023 were necessary. 

“I’ve got no doubt we did the right thing,” he said. “We tried to find a pragmatic, short-term solution and a medium-term solution. 

“It won’t necessarily dissipate [porpoising] completely, but it will be a step less.”