21/06/2022
NEWS STORY
Just a week after the nightmare of Baku, Toto Wolff believes Mercedes has finally "solved" the porpoising issue that has plagued it since pre-season testing.
Of course, the Austrian made a similar claim in Spain, only for the bouncing to return with a vengeance at subsequent events, not least Azerbaijan, where George Russell called on the FIA to change the rules and Lewis Hamilton was rumoured to be considering sitting out the Canada race such was the pain he had suffered on the streets of Baku.
Seven days later, oh Canada, the W13s were as good as gold, allowing Hamilton to claim his second podium of the year, with teammate Russell right behind.
"I think in a way we have dissected what we define as porpoising or bouncing, and it is that the porpoising, which is the aerodynamic movement of the car, I think that's solved and we got on top of this around Barcelona," said Wolff in the aftermath of Sunday's race.
"It is more that the ride of the cars is really what causes the comments of the drivers," he added. The cars are simply all too stiff. The kerb ride is bad, the bump ride is bad and I would say that now, with dissecting this problem, you can tackle it better.
"What we see in the cars is just the stiffness," he said. "You look at some of the slow motions from the two leading cars and the Alpines, you see that they are bouncing off the kerb in a very hard way. This is what the drivers actually complained about, the stiffness of the car. This is something we need to look at, how we can reduce the impact.
"And of course, the smoother the track, the better," he added, believing the issue is track specific. "The lower the kerbs, the less we see this phenomenon."
Aware that the W13 does not yet have the pace of its Italian and Austrian rivals, Wolff admits that more must be extracted from the car.
"We just need to put more load in the car, more downforce and equally do that with a car that is not as low on the ground as we expected.
"It's a clear direction," he insisted. "You can see the cars going higher. This is where we need to find the performance."
Somehow - and stick with us here - as we wonder whether Toto is counting his chickens, we cannot help but hear his claim that the porpoising is solved without hearing it in an Inspector Clouseau voice, as in "the por-poising, it is sol-ved".