British racing driver George Russell feels there is “no doubt” that Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull pushed the regulations” during the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 championship, and believes the new technical directive that will be introduced this weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix at the will allow his team to reduce the performance gap to the F1-75 and Rb18 cars, as the FIA looks to crackdown on porpoising.
After many weeks of talks regarding the so-called safety concerns related to the porpoising effect of the new generation of Formula 1 challengers in 2022, a controversial technical directive is coming for this weekend in Spa: the new rules are aimed at driver safety and reducing the bouncing issue, but at the same time the new directive imposes limits on the use of ‘flexi-floors’, as Mercedes feel that its main rivals have been taking advantage of this area of the car, unlike the German team.
While the 2021 Formula 1 world champions have been far behind in terms of performance as compared to Red Bull and Ferrari in the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 campaign, Mercedes explained that they have been less adventurous over utilising the floor of their car, which has become the most important part of the challenger given the significant performance impact, based on the ground effect rules of 2022:
“Spa-Francorchamps is going to be interesting,” George Russell said in a recent interview for Sky Sports – “There’s changes to some little regulations which may bring other teams towards us.” – he added.
Until now Mercedes did not want to directly name Red Bull and Ferrari in this matter or directly accuse their opponents. However, George Russell said that “there is no doubt that Ferrari and Red Bull have pushed the regulations in that regard, and we’ve respected it as the regulation was intended.”
The 2022 Belgian Grand Prix, the first event of the last nine rounds in the second part of the championship, therefore becomes even more interesting as the new technical directive brings another layer of intrigue – despite the fact that it remains to be seen if the new TD will indeed make things more difficult for Red Bull and the Maranello team starting with next weekend.
“There’s no guarantees it will bring them closer to us. We know if it was on our car, it would make us slower. Every car is different, but it’s not going to help them that’s for sure.” – the British driver added.
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Red Bull’s Christian Horner and Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto have expressed their disapproval regarding the controversial tech directive several times, but at the same time they pointed out that the new floor rules will not affect their cars in terms of performance and lap times: “We just have to be careful we don’t overshoot here and create a big regulation change at this point of the year,” Red Bull boss Christian Horner said a few weeks ago – “I’m not worried about the technical directive. I don’t think that has any consequence for us.”
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