F1 teams question the very quick Mercedes floor 'stay' removal
Jun.19 - Mercedes in Montreal removed an additional 'stay' on the floor of its struggling 2022 car following the suspicions of rival Formula 1 teams.
The rivals wondered how the uncompetitive reigning constructors' world champions knew in advance about the new FIA technical directive on porpoising that opened the door for teams to add the additional support element.
"We don't have one, because the TD came out on Thursday," said Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer.
"To be able to do that isn't fair for the rest of us that couldn't bring a stay."
Mercedes, insisting it had simply come to Canada fully prepared, removed the stay ahead of qualifying.
"I think that if it is taken away it's the right decision. You can't implement that in two days," Williams boss Jost Capito said.
As ever in Formula 1, support for the FIA's moves to stamp out porpoising on safety grounds is split between the teams that are suffering most and those who are succeeding.
"We can run these cars safely," said Alpine's Otmar Szafnauer. "Just raise the ride height."
Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko on Friday called the porpoising clampdown "nonsense", and told De Limburger that he thinks Lewis Hamilton was exaggerating his back pain after Baku.
"He can start a second career as an actor," Marko, 78, said.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, meanwhile, is now calling for the changes to be tied to a budget cap increase.
"There's an inherent cost with that, which under a budget cap is very tricky to accommodate," he told the Telegraph.
Franz Tost, boss of Red Bull's second F1 team AlphaTauri, said on Saturday: "If the FIA, FOM and the teams come together to increase the cost cap a little bit, I will be of course in favour of this."
✅ Check out more posts with related topics:
seems as always the fia have preferred team, das system approved to be one, without these technical situations i dont think cry baby and gang wouldve had all these championships.bring back old fashioned racing and quit the drs system.that will be pure racing
Heard a Grand Prix car passing the commentators at quali yesterday possibly Hamilton’s, wow the bouncing sounded like a washing machine out of balance. How can the Fia/teams have got it so wrong AND not be able to put it right.
How embarrassing for the mighty MB to have two of the best drivers in F1 and provide them with this crap to drive
Tell me this is a joke, Colin Chapman must be turning in his grave, why bother with suspension at all and Ferrari have forgotten how to build engines!
MV and Checo are not super fast, they just have a super fast car, well done RB, let’s hope they don’t get caught cheating.
Blowjob still sucking I see, what ever happened to we win as a team lose as a team ha ha
Blo, VER is not fast??? I'm not a raging Maxfan,but to claim that you have to admit that HAM was not 'fast' when MB had the superior car. Credit where credit is due, my friend. The car is clearly 80% of the equation, but that other 20% still counts and currently VER is, indeed, fast.
Well, he didn’t beat Ham last year in an arguably faster car did he?
I actually said he is not super fast, I think most of the best drivers and he is one would be 1 second ahead in quali if they had his car.
Given the equality of the top drivers I would put it 95% car 5% driver or does that rule only apply to Hamilton?
Incidentally does my prediction of Ham at Alpine still look so far fetched? Toto has lost control at MB, heads should have rolled at MB, there are senior designers who have lost the plot and won’t admit it. Toto in now too weak to replace them.
To point, you just cannot attribute VER's speed to the RB and not attribute HAM's speed to the MB for the past 7 seasons. Fair is fair.
I’m not trying to, many things go into the making of a world drivers champion and world constructors champion. A driver can easily lose a world championship through no fault of his own, most do. A team is rarely let down by their best driver if they have the best car.
VER also had Masi on his side, one WDC*
* Human error
Know one has to admit to a stupid comparison like that, even you have to admit that.
bring back optimal car setup when the greats were driving, senna, schumi, hill, alesi etc.everything came down to driver setup.
And in schumi just plain cheating, ah the glory days
If they can use sellotape on the bodywork then they probably use mecano for the steel brackets, quick an easy fix.