Lewis Hamilton injury blamed by F1 chief technical officer for porpoising rule change: “They went public, loudly”
The Mercedes driver emerged gingerly fro♋m his car at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, holding his lower back in obvious distress at the height of Mercedes’ problems with bouncing.
The FIA then introduced a new technical directive to r🐽educe porpoising on “safety grounds”.
“I think they overreacted a bit after Baku,” F1 chief technical officer Pat Symonds told .
“In Baku,♕ we experienced the worst effects because a team tried something that didn't work and then went🥂 public quite loudly.
“If we had not intervened, the problems would have been solv꧃eꦍd. Most teams have now understood how to control bouncing.”
The♏ FIA did not need to arrange a vote with all 10 F1 teams because the rule was on safety grounds.
Mercedܫes were the most obviously impacted by the porpoising phenomenon, although other drivers such a🐼s Daniel Ricciardo described the pain they felt inside a bouncing car.
Red Bull team principal Chri💝stian Horner appeared to criticise the rule at the time.
"It would seem unfair to penalise the ones tha🍒t have done a decent job, versus the ones that have perhaps missed the target slightly,” Horner said.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Spo🎃rts for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
