Mercedes knows that the FIA's technical directive to contain car jumps puts it in the hot seat, so it hopes the FIA will find the right way so that no one will be prevented from racing in 2022
Mercedes is the leading example when it comes to Formula 1 2022 car kicks, so much so that the scene of Lewis Hamilton barely getting out of his car after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix caught the attention of the FIA (International Automobile Federation).The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobilisme) decided to heed the pleas of other drivers and set a limit on the vertical oscillations of cars on the track. But the Brackley base is concerned about how the technical guideline will be applied, so as not to interfere with the championship race.
The metric was due to come into effect in Canada, but was postponed until France, as the FIA decided to collect more data from the teams. The FIA even allowed the use of an extra floor support in Montreal, but the decision caused controversy and was soon banned for the next race, in England.
The application of the directive, however, is still much debated among team bosses, mainly because it could result in disqualification on the GP weekend if the team refuses to raise the height of the car, even if it is proven that the kicks would harm the driver. Mercedes technical director Mike Elliot argued that none of the heads of the ten teams that currently make up the grid would like to see a rival prevented from racing because of the car's jumps.
"None of us want to be jumping, and I'm sure [the rival teams] would say exactly the same, so we're looking to evolve on this issue," he said. "Another question is this: if you're over metric, are you going to be able to correct even during a race weekend? Because I don't think anyone wants to see cars being stopped from racing because of that," he opined.
"I think time will tell if this metric can be done the right way, helping the teams without hurting the races, we'll see what happens. And I believe the FIA is aware about that," he added.
Elliot, however, knows that the application of the metric puts Mercedes directly in the hot seat, since it is the team that suffers most from jumps - or did, as Toto Wolff assured that porpoising is no longer a problem, and the Silver Arrows still showed a jump in performance in the last two races, in Canada and England. The director even admitted that the team would not have raced in Baku, if the determination had already been in force.
"From what we have heard from the FIA, [the technical directive] still needs to be built up to sort out how it is going to be worked out in practice. If we look at the races using that metric, I don't think we would have passed Baku. But in England, if you look at where we were, we wouldn't have even needed it. I think it's difficult [to determine how the technical directive will be]," concluded the technical director.