Several drivers, in particular George Russell of Mercedes, last weekend urged the governing body of motorsport to work to get rid of the bounce phenomenon of the current generation of cars due to health and safety issues.
The FIA responded almost immediately with a new technical directive issued to teams prior to the Canadian Grand Prix detailing an action plan.
In addition to starting a data collection exercise to try to create a maximum limit for the vertical acceleration and bounce of a car, the teams have been able to make small tweaks to their floors from the race of this head of week to help strengthen them.
The impact on the competitive order of the changes, as well as the restrictions that the FIA may impose in the future regarding the configuration of the car, is not clear right now, but the teams that suffer less porpoises are not happy with the potential they have. suffer too.
And Leclerc, in particular, is irritated that Ferrari may lose the advantage it has gained from working to solve the problem just because the other teams have not taken care of things.
Asked by Motorsport.com about the FIA’s involvement in the porpoise debate, Leclerc said: “On the one hand, I obviously understand George’s point of view, because when you see him and Lewis get out of his car then of Baku, is very bad.
“You can probably feel the pain Lewis is going through right now. And that’s not acceptable.
“But on the other hand, we can’t underestimate the amount of work that has been done in recent months by teams to overcome these problems. This has been our top priority since we first tested these cars.
“We’ve been working to overcome these problems. I think the improvement has been massive, and now all the work we’ve done, [do we] just put it in the trash because obviously one team may be struggling more than others.
“It simply came to our notice then. “Obviously I understand that Mercedes is very bad, but I also think that maybe there are solutions to that.”
George Russell, Mercedes-AMG
Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
Russell, who directed the calls to the pilot briefing in Baku for the FIA to intervene, said it was too early to suggest that teams could lose any competitive advantage with the latest action.
“At the end of the day, it’s the FIA that sets the rules and they can make any regulatory changes they want,” he said. “No one sitting here knows if this will improve their performance or have a negative effect on their performance. So we really need to see that.
“There are so many different aspects and elements of these cars, that when you lift the car, you don’t necessarily reduce or eliminate it. You’re between the porpoise and the bottom – here are two different issues.
“I hope it’s easier for everyone to drive and not have a side effect on anyone’s performance.”
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