Wolff explains Hamilton's back pain due to porpoising: 'We generate almost 6G'
Toto Wolff knows there is work to be done. George Russell managed to finish on the podium for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton on P4, but the team can benefit from Ferrari's dropouts. Mainly the porpoising problem needs to be solved quickly, the team boss believes.
"Sometimes you think they are all going to end up in the wall, but then they drive more carefully. It was an almost incident-free week, apart from obviously, tragically with the Ferrari’s," Wolff said to Viaplay's camera.
Despite the big gap towards Red Bull and Ferrari, the Mercedes team boss is not giving up yet. Wolff believes that his team can improve the car and now needs to get as many points as possible. Due to Ferrari's dropouts, Mercedes is not far away from P2.
Wolff explains back pain Hamilton
"The pep talk is first to look at ourselves. We had great reliability, but it lacks performance. The guys up front are just too quick at the moment. I’m sure we can unlock it, and therefore, all the points we get right now can be very valuable at the end," the team boss continued.
The Mercedes bounced heavily again on the straights in Baku, even causing Hamilton to suffer a significant back strain. "It’s the banging on the ground. It’s up to 6G that we are generating in vertical load, so it’s not muscular anymore, it’s the bones. The drivers sat together, and all of them, but one, agreed that something needs to be done, but I don’t know what could be done," Wolff said.
Not an RBR fan but Horner is on the money about this. If Mercedes really care about their drivers, raise the ride height and lose performance as McLaren have done. Stop whining Mercedes, it's getting embarrassing.
I don't see others complaining, and I heard 8 out 10 teams voted against a rule change, so I wonder where he got those 19 drivers to comply with him..
in the literal translation of the wolf's statement - we have built a bad car with a very low floor clearance from the track, which ensures the floor sealing and amazing performance, but we did not anticipate bouncing the car !!!! when we pick up the car we are the slowest. so I propose to introduce an active suspension that we have already accidentally developed and then we will have dominance because other teams will be slowed down by the lack of an appropriate suspension
Russell and everyone else dealt with it, but there's a very easy solution. Increase the ride height and sacrifice a few tenths dummy.
Same car. Similar bouncing. One driver seems to be affected much more. Must be the age difference that is causing the effects to be felt more by one driver than the other.
You could raise your ride height, but then Mercedes would suffer in pace. So it's the choice they've taken. They've chosen porpoising over slower car. I cannot see FIA helping them, just cause something they've chosen to do themselves.
They raised the minimum weight for the cars even though Alfa had it nailed. Maybe they should make minimum floor clearance to make the bouncing go away.
The lobbying is getting really agressive. Wonder if FIA will give in again to the wishes of Merc
well they do have a new single seater director who has newly severed ties with mercedes. so who knows
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