“I think it has almost disappeared,” George Russell has forgotten what porpoising feels like with the progress that Mercedes has made over the 2022 season
Follow Us
George Russell
George Russell can finally rest his neck a little bit as the ‘porpoising’ issues faced by Mercedes over the year have drastically reduced. With the 2022 regulation changes, there was a massive visible change in the aerodynamics of this year’s cars. All the 10 F1 teams were focused on making the most out of this new regulation change which basically gave them a blank slate to develop their car and get a drastic advantage over their competitors.
Mercedes opted out for a ‘no sidepod’ design that shocked fans and teams alike which led to speculation that the team will be fiercely successful this season and ‘wipe the competition out’. However this speculation never turned into reality as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton found out at the start of the season that they weren’t even the 2nd best car. Since then it has been a struggle for the Brackley based squad to rise up to the top.
One major issue that Mercedes faced this year was the severe porpoising that they encountered on straights. This further turned into a serious issue as both George Russell and his teammate reported constant neck pain. The team later led a protest with the goal of bringing in some technical regulations that would decrease the porpoising in cars and reduce the risk to the driver’s health which they were successful in doing.
George Russell had no complaints about porpoising following the technical directive put into place during the Belgian GP
Mercedes was the team that suffered the most from porpoising and was also the team that backed the incorporation of it extensively. Ever since then, the porpoising has reduced with the ongoing advancements that the team has made and George Russell seems like a much happier man with a neck that doesn’t pain as much as it used to earlier in the season. Here is what he has to say about the situation.
“I think it has almost disappeared,” he said. “I think the couple of small rule changes that were implemented by the FIA definitely helped and the changes into next year by raising the floor edge, we’re almost 100% sure that will take porpoising out of the equation totally,” he said.
“It’s funny, there was once a time that I forgot what a race car felt like not to have porpoising and now, to be honest, I forgot what it does feel like to have porpoising. So I think that also goes to show the progress we as a team have made not only to cure those issues that once seemed very difficult, but also to bring a lot more performance onto the car thereafter,” he continued.
While George Russell is enjoying a life without proposing issues, his teammate Lewis Hamilton is still encountering that problem at times. This in turn shows that proposing is still there in the Mercedes cars but on a much lower level compared to the start of the season. This has worked out well for the Brackley based team as well as Red Bull who have also seemed to benefit largely from it.
Porpoising is a serious issue in F1 and needs to be completely eradicated for the well being of the drivers who already risk their lives every time they step into the car. The FIA should launch a study in order to understand the impact on porpoising on the health of the drivers in order to ensure their safety. Long term effects of this problem should be studied extensively.
Also Read: “FIA is a joke,” F1 fans furious over talks of FIA’s ‘accepted breach agreement’ offer to Red Bull
Stay Updated!
Varad Joshi
(940 Articles Published)