I doubt it. The last time the FIA supposedly clamped down on this after Australia, it was a lot of other teams further down the grid that needed to alter their cars in any dramatic way.Ciro Pabón wrote:It seems we can expect some changes in performance at Spain.
You're not really altering the ride height with this, but being able to vary the height that the floor is at in a variable way gives you a good bit of leeway in how air flows around there. The core issue, really, is being able to raise the height of the floor to avoid damage that would get you disqualified, while lowering the ride height of the rest of the car as a result. I think the whole issue with what Ferrari in particular may or may not be doing is quite confused I think, because it really depends on how the front end of the car works as a whole - if indeed they are doing anything in that area.
In the past in F1 it was extremely preferable to get the car as low to the ground as possible with the stiffest suspension possible for a low centre of gravity, and that was certainly the case in the ground effect era. It still is preferable to do that. However, when rear diffusers started to make an appearance it was actually preferable to get some air under the car to make these devices work properly. It's become a big trade off over the years, with low slung noses being the norm in the early 1990s with the Williams, the gradual performance gains of the Benetton nose (actually, it's the revolutionary Tyrrel nose) forcing everyone to bring in such noses, and the McLarens in the late 90s and the 2001 Ferrari featuring a more low slung but similar nose which everyone now has. It's quite a complex area, and stalling the diffuser is not a great idea at all because it upsets this balance in a bad way. That's a big red herring.