The Spanish habit of over-translating getting a very good airing right here in one of their papers. Pedro Gaseoso for the win!
It does seem like Mercedes and Mercedes backed cars are making the biggest noise about ride heights. My worry is they are trying to grab an advantage. Mercedes have the biggest problem, they need to fix their car.
Not sure about grab an advantage more a quick easy solution for their design failure. On the one hand it would not be fair for the non bouncing teams to have to increase ride height just so the teams that didn't do as good a job can have a chance of winning on the other the drivers long term health needs to be ensured. that said footballers still head the ball and they know that causes issues - boxers still suffer brain issues etc but when drivers health could be ensured by just raising ride heights it does seem the right thing to do but not if it's really just to allow Merc to win some races!!
Mercedes have clearly got their design wrong. They have to live with the consequences, they can't be given special treatment. I do believe more testing, mid season, should be allowed for all teams to help identify a fix to their problems. This requires a budget increase. How a team spends that money and what it uses the testing for is up to them, thus those who have not suffered bouncing, like Redbull, can improve their car in other ways. While writing this I researched the evolution of the soccer ball (as opposed to the answers I got when entering football). I see goal line technology is now being introduced that informs the referee, via a device they have on their wrists, when the soccer ball crosses the goal line.
Ask yourself this - if it was one of the mid to low order teams bleating about ‘porpoising’ then would anything be said (or if it was would anyone listen or give a hoot?) MB have designed a dud. Tough. They are acting like a playground bully. As Red Bull did when they ‘suggested’ that unless the budget cap is raised they may have to miss races. Boo hoo. Let them both scream and scream until they’re sick! And George R is right. Unfortunately the answer is not one his lords and masters are prepared to implement.
Red Bull did have quite a significant ace card coming in to this era with the experience and genius of Newey. It's not all that surprising that they would get this right out of the gate. The idea behind these new regs were to promote closer racing, and it's not necessarily happening at the moment due to the inherent problems that come with ground effects, and it's a bit of a performance issue outside of RBR and the Scuderia (despite their bouncing). I'm not sure there's a whole lot they can do this season, but we have an opportunity to address a permanent solution for forthcoming seasons, so imo, if that can be discussed and agreed upon quickly, we can hopefully scratch this particular problem off the list for 2023.
I think you are right about Newey. I sort of expected this year to be a bit of a learning year plus budget caps starting to limit things. As you say next year the teams will have lots more info on what the others have done and what worked so they can refine/start from scratch their 2023 cars. It reminds me a bit or Brawn - they found a way of making the regs work for them and it took others time to catch up. This year the thing slowing the teams down is the budget cap! So they can't just throw money at a problem they have - exactly what the budget cap was intended to do! I'm not sure I want them to change regs or mandate a set minimum ride height this year. Maybe a max vertical G load for the drivers - that way the only ones that are penalised are the teams who's drivers are getting pummelled.
I agree with Wrathmonk . If it was a smaller team , not much , if anything , would be said . Some teams have got it right , some haven’t . in order to protect the drivers , those teams should raise the ride height . Then shut up and get developing !
Perfect. Set the vertical load limit to 0.65g and make that the rule! Safety for the drivers and the teams who got it right don't get penalised. Interesting that Merc load going up as fuel goes down and the ride height increasing!
FIA doing the right thing here i'd say. Only teams that haven't sorted out the issue will be forced to raise the ride-height. Good news for Lewis's back, not great for his chances in the race. Real story could be how this affects Ferrari, who also porpoise quite a bit. Red Bull look more like champions by the day.
Hoping this doesn't have an affect on Ferrari at any point. It could be an absolute gift for RBR if it does.