F1: Red Bull boss takes dig at Ferrari and Mercedes over porpoising issues
Red Bull Racing are leading both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships after eight races
Lewis Hamilton dismissed Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff's claims that he could miss the next race in Canada. The seven-time world champion complained of severe back pain owing to porpoising issues on his Mercedes during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has slammed teams appealing to the FIA to address the porpoising issue. The Briton feels team bosses are asking their drivers to moan about the issue more than necessary to ensure the governing body takes action.
Horner feels porpoising is an issue the teams have to deal with as all teams are tackling the bouncing issue in different ways. The likes of Mercedes and Ferrari seem to be the most affected, but the likes of Red Bull and McLaren have found solutions to deal with it internally.
"You have a choice where you run your car, don't you? And you should never run a car that's unsafe. But... I think that's more for the technical guys – because there's certain cars that have issues, and there are some cars that have few issues," Horner said, as quoted by The Race.
"It would seem unfair to penalise the ones that have done a decent job versus the ones that have perhaps missed the target slightly."
"I think if it was a genuine safety concern across the whole grid, then it's something that should be looked at. But if it's only affecting isolated people or teams, that's something that that team should potentially deal with," he added.
George Russell, meanwhile, has revealed that it is not only the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers that have complained about the intense bouncing having an averse affect on their neck and back. The young Briton has no doubt that a major incident owing to this is just around the corner.
"Nobody is trying to say this to get any advantage, you've got the Ferrari drivers and even Max has said how tough it is," Russell said after the race.
"You've either got porpoising and the car is hitting the ground or if you have no porpoising, you're able to run the car millimetres, less than 1cm to the ground and you're smashing the bumps. whichever way you've got it, it's not great and something will happen, no doubt about it."
