The Mercedes rising star went as far as to say it’s “just a matter of time before we see a major incident.”
Porpoising has been a hot topic with Mercedes drivers being vocal about the bouncing they’ve endured, but it seemed to be even worse in Baku. “A lot of us can barely keep the car in a straight line over these bumps and we are going around the last two corners at 300km/h [in Baku] and we are bottoming out and you can visibly see on the tarmac how close the cars are running to the ground,” the Mercedes rising star said.
“I don’t really know what the future holds but I don’t think we can sustain this for three years or however long these regulations are in force for.”, Russell raised the safety concerns of the cars bottoming out to the FIA during the driver’s briefing on Friday. F1’s new technological regulations allow the cars to follow each other more closely, but in an effort to maximize performance, the cars run closer to the ground to help with the efficiency of underfloor aerodynamics.
In some cases, this has resulted in porpoising, which is essentially the cars bouncing up and down on the straights. The aerodynamic phenomenon can be triggered from the car running too close to the ground or from a bumpy track surface, such as the one at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Russell made it clear that he’s not raising the matter because of a competitive advantage but rather a real safety concern.
“I mean, for what it’s worth we are not as massively in favor for it [regulation change] as a team because with every race we do, we are learning more and more about the car and any changes is going to limit that learning. So it’s not like we want it to change, it is clearly a safety limitation,” Russell said,. “The top three teams are also in the same position, Ferrari and Red Bull, well Ferrari more than Red Bull you can clearly see they are really struggling with that.
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