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George Russell, who took his maiden pole this weekend ahead of the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix, eventually finished the race behind his teammate Lewis Hamilton in third to take his fifth podium of the season.
In a post-race media interaction, the Mercedes driver, who led the Grand Prix for 30 laps, admitted that he was happy with the progress made by the Silver Arrows despite missing out on a potential race win this weekend:
“When it started spitting and we were on the soft tyres at the start I thought we were on. Towards the end on the mediums with the slightly heavier rain I really struggled.”
The Briton further said:
“Amazing job by the team. Pole position yesterday and a double podium - we’re definitely making progress, so really proud of the work we’ve done.”
While George Russell had been hoping to secure his maiden race win this weekend, Mercedes will undoubtedly be heading into the summer break with plenty of momentum with two consecutive double podium finishes for the team.
George Russell believes that porpoising could been the cause of Charles Leclerc at the French GP
Despite comfortably leading the French Grand Prix last weekend, Charles Leclerc suffered his third DNF of the season after hitting the barriers on the eighteenth lap of the race. George Russell believes that heavy porpoising could have contributed to the incident.
In an interview with BBC Sport, the Mercedes driver spoke about Leclerc's crash at the French Grand Prix and the role that bouncing could have played in the same. He said:
“We know what the load variation was through the car, and the car was bouncing up and down by over 50% of its weight. So if the car is 700-odd kilos and the variation is over 400kg, you know, as a driver, you can’t control that, when it’s plus/minus 400kg every half a second entering a corner. As you slow down the severity gets less. But these cars are so sophisticated with the aerodynamics and if it is just bouncing around, the tyres not in contact with the ground or not as much force into the ground as it should have.”
He continued:
“I don’t know, but it does seem interesting that the two incidents in that corner for a whole weekend, both were porpoising on the entry. Mick Schumacher had an off in the same corner in free practice, exactly the same, the car just smashing against the floor. And it’s kind of an unnecessary risk and danger we have to go through because that is the fastest way to drive the cars.”
Speaking about the FIA's intervention to tackle the porpoising issues, George Russell added:
“I don’t have the answers, but it’s down to the FIA to intervene. It’s just totally unnecessary and there’s already enough risk associated with driving 200mph between the streets of Monaco, or Jeddah. Or Silverstone.”
Mercedes is pushing for modifications to the regulations ahead of the 2023 season to take measures to curb the impact of porpoising, although several teams, including Ferrari and Red Bull, are not in favor of the same.
