Following intervention by the FIA to address safety concerns expressed by drivers, Mercedes found itself at the center of an intense debate in the paddock.
By reacting so quickly and presenting a second floor to his car on Friday, as allowed by the FIA technical directive sent on Thursday, his rivals wondered if the team had received advance notice of the changes to be ready in time, something Mercedes insisted she hadn’t done.
Furthermore, they argued that the part was actually illegal, as the FIA had not changed the regulations to allow it, so Mercedes risked a protest if it was used in qualifying. Finally, they removed it from W13 for Saturday after verifying that it had not brought any improvement.
Furthermore, Toto Wolff believes that rival teams are asking their drivers to play down concerns lest the FIA act even faster on this matter.
Disagreements between Mercedes and its rivals came to a head at a team principals meeting on Saturday morning at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with Wolff expressing anger at others for playing political games.
Motorsport.com sources revealed that he expressed disappointment that others were trying to gain competitive and political advantage through something that was a genuine safety concern for their drivers.
Asked by Motorsport.com about the porpoising situation and the meeting, Wolff couldn’t hide his anger at how things were developing.
“This is a sport where you try to maintain a competitive edge or win it,” he said. “But this situation has clearly gone too far.”
“All the drivers, at least one in each team, have said that they were in pain after Baku, that they had difficulty keeping the car on track or had blurred vision.
“For team principals to try to manipulate what is said to maintain competitive advantage and use politics when the FIA is trying to come up with a quick fix to at least put the cars in a better position, it is not sincere. And that is what I told you.”
“I’m not just talking about the Mercedes: all the cars suffered in one way or another in Baku, and they continue to do so here. The cars are too stiff. The cars bounce, or whatever you want to call it.”
“There are long-term effects that we can’t even judge. But at any point this is going to be a safety risk, and to come in with little tampering, or tip off the drivers, it’s just unfortunate.”
While Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been the most vocal about porpoising issues, Wolff believes it’s wrong for rivals to think their drivers are overdoing it in order to make their cars faster.
Wolff says many other drivers are also unhappy with the situation, including Red Bull Racing’s Checo Pérez .
“Of course people will question whether my position is sincere or not,” he said. “That’s why I say it’s not just our problem. But if a Red Bull driver says you hit 300kph, that’s when the problem arises, and with these problems, ‘you can even lose your vision under braking or not being able to position the car correctly’, as Pérez said…”.
“And then you hear Sainz’s words, you hear what Ricciardo has said, we hear what Ocon, Magnussen and our two drivers have said.
“This is not a problem with our team. This is a design issue with the ground effect cars that needs to be addressed before we have a worse situation, whatever it is.”
“And it’s not just raising the cars, because raising them doesn’t solve the stiffness of the inherent aerodynamic characteristics,” he concluded.
