The bouncing feeling was so bad for Mercedes that Lewis Hamilton was in a lot of pain throughout the 51-lap race in Azerbaijan.
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F1 is a political sport, and the controversy over porpoising is just another chapter in the sport’s lengthy history. After last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Mercedes struggled down the lengthy back straight in Baku, the issue was underlined more than ever. The bouncing feeling was so bad for Mercedes that Lewis Hamilton was in a lot of pain throughout the 51-lap race in Azerbaijan. Naturally, there is some resistance to Mercedes, notably George Russell and Toto Wolff, expressing their worries about safety over the Baku weekend and lobbying for regulation changes to fight the porpoising issue.
Red Bull CEO Christian Horner indicated that the most impacted rival teams are embellishing their worries in the hopes of having the regulations amended in their benefit, such as a minimum ride height. “I mean, look, you can see it’s uncomfortable, but there are remedies to that. But it’s to the detriment of the car’s performance. What is the easiest thing to do is to complain from a safety point of view, but each team has a choice.” expressed the Red Bull team principal.
Baku being a street circuit, the track surface isn’t as smooth as a traditional grand prix circuit, exacerbating the propoising problem even further. “I think it’s a combination also on this track, it has been very bumpy on the straight also with the old cars, so this year it’s exaggerated. I think Jeddah, it was very smooth, and Australia, and no one was complaining. It’s going to be very difficult to agree for all the teams [to make changes]. But yeah, I wish they do something for the young boys. For me, it’s OK for a few more years!”
Read more: Teams need to stop complaining about Propoising and learn to deal with it
Lando Norris isn’t the only one who agrees with Alonso, saying that he doesn’t believe it’s anything to be upset about. Mercedes, according to Norris, prioritizes performance over comfort, but McLaren takes the other route. “I’m not complaining. Yeah, we have some porpoising, some bouncing, but it’s what you have to deal with. So I don’t think it’s anything to complain about. It’s just people need to find ways of fixing it themselves.” exclaimed the Mclaren driver.
“It’s the trade of trying to gain performance and we can quite easily go lower, gain performance but have more porpoising, but we just think where we are at is the correct amount. So I’m sure Mercedes could have a much different floor and raise the ride height and it would be much nicer for them, but they obviously just don’t want to lose performance.” expressed Norris.
The porpoising issue is unlikely to go away anytime soon, with all ten teams unlikely to reach an agreement moving ahead, putting their own interests and performances first. Teams might compromise their own performance to make it simpler on the drivers, as Norris noted. They won’t, though, since this is Formula One, and lap time is essential.
