Mercedes would have reduced the “porpoising” to “only 2G to 3G”
Mercedes announces that they have drastically reduced the intensity of bounces on their W13.
Suffering since the beginning of the season, the silver arrows are recognized as being the most bouncy this year, despite some encouraging signs. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix saw Lewis Hamilton come out injured from his car, after experiencing extremely high vertical forces, on the order of several Gs, which is 10 times the weight of his body with each bounce.
After the intervention of the FIA, all teams are required to drastically reduce the vertical forces inflicted on the drivers, under the risk of having to raise their single-seaters by one centimeter. It seems that Mercedes did not need these technical directives to reduce the rebounds themselves. Indeed, at the Canadian Grand Prix, the Mercedes appeared less brutal than in previous races.
As testified by Lewis Hamilton during the press conference following the Canadian Grand Prix, « The last race, there were no words to describe how complicated it was. But this weekend, it was better… we had some bumps, but it was nothing compared to Baku. If we had around 10Gs last time, here it was around 2 or 3Gs, so we can live with that. »
The sporting regulations of the FIA seem to favor Mercedes. On the other hand, Ferrari believes that they are not necessary, while Red Bull considers them irrelevant and that it is not fair to penalize everyone just because one team did not do their job properly.
