Mercedes have struggled with the porpoising of their newly designed W13 since the start of the 2022 championship. The violent bouncing has restricted the Silver Arrows from fighting the front rivals Red Bull and Mercedes. The German racing team has not won a single race this season. They also seem to be running out of time to win their ninth constructors’ championship in a row.
However, Mercedes are not the only racing team who have suffered the effects of porpoising this year. Several teams and drivers experienced the worst effects in Baku, which led to the FIA interference due to safety concerns. Within days of the Azerbaijan GP, the FIA announced a new technical directive on Sunday. The motorsport’s governing body suggested changes in the regulation in order to find a solution to eliminate or reduce the violent porpoising at high speeds. In just 24 hours since the change was announced, the Mercedes introduced a new floor-stay during Friday’s practice in Montreal. However, the other F1 racing teams were shocked by the Silvers Arrows‘ introduction of a new part. And this led them to suspect if the FIA had pre-informed the German racing team about a change in regulation.
Not just that, the rival F1 teams accused the FIA of tipping the Mercedes team ahead of the Canadian GP. The teams had their suspicions around Mercedes’ introduction of a floor stay, which required just a day to design. The media house has claimed that the F1 fraternity was shocked by how quickly the Silver Arrows designed the part after FIA technical directive issued the floor-stay for technical reasons. One of the anonymous team executives raised a question about how Mercedes was aware of the change and acted so quickly.
Toto Wolff Unhappy With Rival Team Principal Politics
Many rival teams wondered if Mercedes had a special channel open within the. Earlier in June, Shaila-Ann Rao, a former executive, was appointed as the temporary FIA general. But Toto was not pleased by the questions raised by his rival teams’ principals.
Wolff felt that the situation had gone too far. And F1 team bosses trying to play political games was disingenuous. The Mercedes boss added that all the team struggled with the effects of porpoising in Baku in some manner. Toto felt the bouncing issue was a Formula One problem that must be solved quickly. The former Austrian driver mentioned, “Little manipulations in the background, Chinese whispers. It’s a bit difficult.”
Elsewhere, Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer claimed his team would not have been able to design a stay in one day. The 57-year-old revealed that Alpine’s chief technical officer was on a flight to Montreal when the technical directive came out. Therefore, the team was not able to produce a stay in time. Moreover, the floor-stay did help the Silver Arrows in Canada. They managed to clinch a P3 and P4, with Hamilton returning back to the podium, the first time after Bahrain.