Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has backed his Maranello team-mate Carlos Sainz’s claim that Formula 1 has to take into consideration the long-term effect which porpoising has on drivers’ health. Given the design concepts of the new generation of Formula 1 cars, based on the ground-effect technology, the 2022 F1 challengers have been struggling with porpoising, as some teams suffered from the bouncing effect more than others.
In the press conference ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz stated that the sport has to consider the effect this has on drivers’ health, especially after Mercedes driver George Russell admitted to having chest pains at the end of one of the first races in the 2022 Formula One championship.
While most of the teams brought different updates last time out at the Circuit de Catalunya, with the goal of eliminating porpoising as much as possible, the problem still appears in certain conditions depending on set-up problems or wind and track conditions:
“I think it depends on drivers, because Carlos seems to be a bit more sensitive to it, compared to me, where I don’t struggle as much – but I definitely agree with him, that it should be something that shouldn’t happen with those cars.” Charles Leclerc explained, when asked about this matter – “We got better with it but there are some teams that are still struggling with it much more than we do, but for them, I cannot speak. Looking at onboards, some cars look much worse than others. We were definitely on the bad side at the beginning of the year. We got better, but still, it’s definitely something that we should look at.” – he added.
Alfa Romeo and Haas seem to be the teams which have been suffering less than other with porpoising problems. Haas did not introduce any upgrades for the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend, preferring to focus on maximising the potential of its current package before introducing developments in the second part of the championship.
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Ferrari junior Mick Schumacher, who is currently in his second year with Haas, agreed with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, but added: “Personally, I don’t have a problem with it but also, I think that we as a sport shouldn’t have to deal with that issue. I think the car should be well-engineered to not have that problem. And I’m sure that for the future, we won’t have it. Just because now we know that it kind of created it. I’m pretty sure we’ll fix it.” – the Ferrari Driver Academy member said.
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