Hamilton reveals he's suffered other pain from porpoising

As in the original days of F1 with ground effect, in the early 1980s, porpoising has returned, that effect whereby the airflow stagnates on the ground and therefore detaches and reattaches itself to the car.

That forces downforce to shed, creating a cycle in which cars are pulled towards the track surface and then ‘released’ at higher speeds, producing a violent bounce down the straights.

To combat this, teams have tried increasing the stiffness of the suspension and lowering the ride height, but that leads to more extreme bounce when the cars go over bumps in the tarmac.

News broke during the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix that porpoising was due to appear in 2022, but the teams rejected last year’s regulation tweaks that aimed to eradicate it.

Lewis Hamilton has revealed that such violent movements can subject drivers to up to 10G of lateral forces.

The seven-time champion was seen suffering when he got out of his Mercedes W13 after 51 laps of the Baku urban circuit, where he had to endure severe back pain.

Asked how long it takes to recover after races in 2022, the Mercedes driver said: “Nowadays there are a lot more bruises after races, so it usually takes you most of the week to recover.

“I don’t think that has anything to do with age. It’s just because bruising can be pretty bad.”

“When you suffer experiencing 10Gs on the rebound on a bump, which is what I experienced in the last race, that’s a heavy load, heavy on the bottom and the top of the neck.”

Hamilton also revealed that he has experienced more headaches since the radical change of cars.

He said: “In terms of micro concussions, I’ve certainly been getting a lot more headaches in the last couple of months, but I haven’t been to see a specialist about it.”

“I don’t take it too seriously, I’ve just been taking some painkillers.”

Asked about the stress the drivers’ bodies are under, Hamilton continued: “I can’t stress how important health is to us.”

“I think we have an amazing sport. But safety has to be the most important thing.”

“I definitely feel like I’m a little bit frazzled this week. The [back] discs aren’t in the best shape right now. That’s not good for longevity.”

“There are things we can do to improve that for all the drivers… there is no need to suffer long-term injuries.”

Ahead of this weekend’s Canadian GP, the FIA has announced that it will intervene – although it will only observe and not act in Montreal – through a technical directive to combat porpoising .

That directive is based on safety and will consist of “a more detailed examination of the plates and skids of the cars, both in terms of their design and the observed wear”.

In addition, there will be a “definition of a metric, based on the vertical acceleration of the car, that will give a quantitative limit for the acceptable level of vertical oscillations”.

“The exact mathematical formula for this metric is still being worked out by the FIA, and F1 teams have been invited to contribute to this process.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes