A number of drivers, in particular George Russell of Mercedes, last weekend called on the governing body of car racing to work to get rid of the jumping phenomenon of the current generation of cars due to health and safety concerns.
The FIA responded almost immediately with a new technical directive issued to the teams before the Canadian Grand Prix, which details the action plan.
In addition to launching a data collection exercise to try to create the maximum allowable vertical acceleration and jumping of the car, the teams were allowed to make small changes to their race floors this weekend to help strengthen them.
The impact of the changes on the order on competition, as well as any restrictions that the FIA may impose in the future on car tuning, is currently unclear – but teams that suffer from fewer poses are not very happy with the potential. to make them suffer too.
And Leclerc, in particular, is annoyed that Ferrari may lose the advantage it has made of its work in solving the problem just because other teams don’t have to deal with it.
Asked by Motorsport.com about the FIA’s involvement in the porpoise debate, Leclerc said: “On the one hand, I obviously understand George’s thesis, because when you see him and Lewis get out of their car after Baku, it’s very bad.
“You can probably feel the pain that Lewis is feeling right now. And this is not acceptable.
“But on the other hand, you also can’t underestimate the amount of work done by teams in the last few months to deal with these problems. This has been our top priority since the first time we tried these cars.
“We are working to address these issues. I think the improvement has been huge and now all the work we’ve done, [do we] just put it in the trash because obviously there is one team that fights more than others.
“It simply came to my notice then. I obviously understand that Mercedes is very bad, but I also think that there may be corrections for that. “
George Russell, Mercedes-AMG
Photo: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images
Russell, who called on the FIA to intervene at the drivers’ briefing in Baku, explained that it was too early to assume that the teams could lose any competitive advantage through the latest action.
“At the end of the day, the FIA is the creator of the rules and they can make any changes to the regulations they want,” he said. “No one knows whether this will improve their performance or have a negative effect on their performance. So we really have to see.
“There are so many different aspects and elements to these cars that lifting a car doesn’t necessarily reduce or eliminate it. You are between a guinea pig and the bottom: there are two different types of problems.
“I hope it’s easier for everyone to drive and it won’t affect performance for anyone.”
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