Sir Lewis Hamilton has been accused of misrepresenting his back discomfort in order to assist Mercedes catch up to Red Bull, according to Christian Horner.
Every Formula One team has been beset by ‘porpoising’ issues this season, in which the car bounces up and down wildly, affecting performance and causing severe pain in the cockpit.
Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate George Russell have been the most afflicted racers on the grid, and the former was plainly in discomfort as he climbed out of his W13 after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday.
‘I can’t convey the suffering you go through, especially down the straight here, and you’re just praying for it to end,’ the 37-year-old said after the race.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ CEO, also suggested that Hamilton’s back issues may prevent him from competing in the upcoming Canadian Grand Prix, but Horner believes the pair are exaggerating the situation.
Regulation changes have been proposed to make it easier for teams to correct the ‘porpoising,’ and Horner believes that the comments made by rival drivers and team managers are part of a plot to force those changes through.
‘Of course, it is. It’s part of the game,’ Horner said, as quoted by The Race.
‘I’d tell them [the Red Bull drivers] to bitch as much as they could on the radio and make as big an issue out of it as they possibly could.
‘I think if it was a genuine safety concern across the whole grid, then it’s something that should be looked at. But if it’s only affecting isolated people or teams, that’s something that that team should potentially deal with.
‘It would seem unfair to penalise the ones that have done a decent job versus the ones that have perhaps missed the target slightly.’
Red Bull leads both championships after eight races, with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez dominating the drivers’ standings, so it’s no wonder that Horner doesn’t want anyone to close the gap to his team.
However, ‘porpoising’ is a pervasive problem across the grid, and even Verstappen has conceded that his car has been affected this season, albeit not to the same extent as others.
‘Look, you can tell it’s uncomfortable – but there are cures to that,’ Horner said.
‘The easiest thing is obviously to raise a car. The team has a choice to do that, but it’s to the detriment of the car performance.
‘You should never run a car that’s unsafe. But I think that’s more for the technical guys – because there’s certain cars that have issues, and there are some cars that have few issues.
‘The easiest thing to do is to complain from a safety point of view – but each team has a choice.’