Formula 1 CEO and President Stefano Domenicali held his usual Saturday meeting with team bosses in Montreal, during which clashes broke out between managers over porpoising in the wake of the FIA technical directive .
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff commented after the meeting that the behavior of their rival team bosses in the porpoising debate has been “regrettable” and “insincere”, playing political games, while underlining the security concern in this matter.
The rest of the teams on the grid have been less vocal than Mercedes about a possible FIA intervention, especially Red Bull, which is one of the teams with the fewest rebound problems this season.
When the discussion turned to that at the meeting, Wolff was told that some teams, notably Ferrari and Alpine, considered the new technical directive to be a breach of the regulations, and that the second tie rod his team had installed in the car was illegal.
It has been learned that Horner then suggested to Wolff that Mercedes’ problems with this rebound lay in the concept of the team car, rather than in the regulations themselves, and that it was the German manufacturer that should put its own house in order. .
Since the inception of Drive to Survive , the F1 docuseries, meetings between team bosses had never been recorded, but this was the first to feature the presence of Netflix. Wolff had been the chosen character to watch in Montreal and the cameras followed him everywhere over the weekend.
Asked by Motorsport.com if it was a good thing for Netflix to film a private meeting, Horner replied: “I think there was a theatrical element to that meeting.”
“So you know, maybe with the new Lewis movie coming up, [he] is being groomed for it.”
Aston Martin boss Mike Krack offered a somewhat more detached view of the core of the disputes, saying the meeting was “somewhat emotional for some” as tensions soared during the debate.
Mercedes fitted a second bracket to its W13 to help with porpoising in practice on Friday, following the guidance of the technical directive issued by the FIA, but it was removed before FP3.
Other teams have questioned whether it was within the regulations, putting Mercedes at risk of facing a protest if they didn’t get their car back as it was.
There was also some concern from the teams about the timing of its introduction, as the FIA sent the statement when they were traveling to Montreal.
Horner considered that the problem of porpoising was always going to be more serious in Azerbaijan and Canada, but that “it did not seem like a problem in the race”.
“There is a process of introducing these things,” the Red Bull boss explained. “I think what was disappointing was the second tie, because it has to be discussed in a technical forum.”
“And that is clearly biased towards fixing the problems of a team, which was the only one that showed up here with him even before the announcement.”
“So look for the answer.”
