Christian Horner believes Red Bull understands porpoising, but for Mercedes it is “aggressive”

Christian Horner believes Red Bull understands porpoising, but for Mercedes it is “aggressive”

Christian Horner

The first GP weekend of the 2022 season has begun in Bahrain with two sessions of free practice, each lasting for an hour, giving the teams to test out the final changes that they’d have put in the week they had after three days of pre-season testing on the same track. After these rounds remain only another practice session, giving them a chance to test their final amendments.

Out of all the challenges discovered during the pre-season testing, porpoising was the one which bothered all the most, and as it looked in practice, Red Bull has gotten to the top of it, while Mercedes W13 suffered severely from the bumpy effect, and Red Bull boss Christian Horner, too, thinks the same.  

After the session ended, Christian Horner, on being asked if Red Bull was dealing with as much porpoising as Mercedes, as quoted by GP Fans, said, “I think to a lesser degree. Theirs looks particularly aggressive.

“But the guys have done a good job. We had a fair amount of it in Barcelona, but we have started to understand it and get on top of it.”

Red Bull’s opening performance round-up by Christian Horner and Max Verstappen

Red Bull's Christian Horner and Max Verstappen
Christian Horner and Max Verstappen

Christian Horner said, “It has been a positive day for us really, both in the warmer conditions earlier and in the last session, the short-runs, the long-runs, both looked pretty decent. But, of course, fuel loads and engine modes, there are so many caveats, but we are pretty satisfied with today’s running.”

Max Verstappen finished on top of the timesheet and is the only driver to touch the 1 minute 31 seconds mark of the lap timings in all the testing and practice sessions combined. Max, summing up day 1 for Red Bull, said, “It felt really good. Straightforward and smooth day, so I’m really happy with that. It felt really good on both short and long runs, basically, whatever happens in the short run you try to then correct in the long run, but the car was doing all of it. Very pleased.”

The team overall looked satisfied with the performance including that of Sergio Perez’s. However, the team will try to be cautious and not get ahead of themselves heading into the qualifying cause that’ll be the moment of truth for all team’s pace.

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