Lewis Hamilton felt the bouncing of his W-13 as he was left with a ‘sore’ back during the practice sessions of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton would have been expecting a better showing by his Mercedes W-13 after a decent performance in the Spanish Grand Prix. Mercedes with a new rear front wing admitted to having finally found solutions to the porpoising effects at the Spanish Grand Prix.
However, the porpoising effects are back to haunt the team. Hamilton felt the bouncing nature of the car while driving at the Baku Street Circuit.
During the first practice session, things were going well as Hamilton finished a second behind leader Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. It was clearly visible that the porpoising had returned while Hamilton accelerated on the long straights of the circuit.
The team tried altering setups during the break between the sessions. Despite their best efforts, the car kept bouncing and the Briton felt ‘sore’ after finishing 1.6 seconds behind Charles Leclerc by the end of FP2.
Time to find, but you know we’ll be working as hard as we can to hunt it down. pic.twitter.com/Pi7L9VEsWR
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) June 10, 2022
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Lewis Hamilton explains how things have not changed since the Monaco Grand Prix
Hamilton spoke with the media after the practice session. He explained how things are similar to the previous round in Monaco. Moreover, he had to stretch his back in discomfort after driving the W-13.
The Briton added: “It’s pretty much the same as in the last race, really. We’re hitting some serious speeds at the end here and it’s bouncing a lot.”
While his teammate George Russell ran a different session, the latter was three-tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton. The Seven times World Champion was not in a pleasant mood mainly due to the car setups not working out in his favour.
In conclusion, he said: “I just can’t really tell you where 1.6 seconds or 1.3 seconds whatever is. That’s a long way away, a lot of it’s on straights.”
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