This was an issue that hampered the team throughout the season, and it could not be solved in time for Laffite to properly challenge the Ferraris of Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve, and later the all-dominant Williams of Alan Jones.

Although the chassis flexing issues had been solved, the car was still producing so much downforce that the suspension and wheelhubs were coming under direct loading and therefore stress fractures developed.

This was due to the immense pressure exerted on the suspension arms and the wheels by the ground effect, causing them to fail under hard braking.

To solve the issues with the increased downforce, Gérard Ducarouge came up with a solution, dubbed the "clapet" (French for "valve"), where in a series of flaps within the venturi tunnels would open up at after a certain amount of pressure.

The existence of the system was eventually discovered by F1 technical illustrator Giorgio Piola during the final race of the 1980 season at Watkins Glen.