Lewis Hamilton got captured massively affected by proposing on Mercedes’ car, as his head shakes continuously during his drive.
Mercedes claims to be struggling with porpoising, which has halted their development. Thus, they claim to be not at the stage of winning this year’s championship.
Though many F1 opinion-makers deject this claim, seeing Mercedes’ sandbagging over the years, it’s hard to digest their words. But a video of Lewis Hamilton from the FP2 of Bahrain Grand Prix is bolstering the Brackley-based team’s innocence.
In a video posted by SkySports, one can see Hamilton’s head shaking excessively while he is driving through his lap.
On board with Hamilton and just look at how much his head is moving in the car 😬 pic.twitter.com/TDyQoju1EG
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) March 18, 2022
Neither of Mercedes’ cars came at the front of the grid in both the free practice sessions. But, to be safe, waiting for Mercedes’s performance in qualifying would be the appropriate time to judge where the current champions stand.
Mercedes is fast on corners
While Mercedes seems to struggle on the straights due to porpoising, the GPS of Red Bull and Williams revealed that they are fast on the corners.
So, one solution to their porpoising could be changing floors and making it appropriate for the straights. But that would also eliminate their edge in the corners, which is vital to winning races.
So, Mercedes has a juxtaposition to solve so that they can maintain their hegemony in F1. So far, F1 commentator David Croft has claimed that Mercedes would have solved their issues by the end of six races, only to dominate the rest of the field in the remaining races.
If not them, then who?
If the current champions continue to struggle, then the question comes, who will be at the top of the table? Currently, Red Bull and Ferrari seem to be the fastest as per the limited data available for this year.
Mercedes even claimed that Ferrari is the favourite to win the first race of the season. While the Prancing horses have downplayed all the hype around them, they indeed are focused on winning the race in Bahrain.
During the Friday press conference, Mattia Binotto claimed that their focus is to win this year. A statement which was hardly ever spoken by Ferrari in the last two years.
Also read: George Russell downplays possibility of challenging Lewis Hamilton for world title