Formula 1 | Russell: Return of active suspension could fix porpoising problem
If several teams are affected by porpoising this season, Mercedes F1 seems to be the most penalized by this phenomenon and this was particularly obvious during the last race which took place at Imola.
A return to active suspension in F1 could get rid of those rebounds once and for all, according to George Russell. The Briton was already talking about this solution a few weeks ago.
« I’ve talked about active suspension before. It was the way to go in the 1980s and maybe still is, » said the Mercedes driver.
“From a driving point of view, it would make the cars much faster because they would then be at the perfect height during every corner.
« It’s a very widespread technology these days, we see it on production cars and especially 4x4s whose ride height changes according to the terrain. »
« It looks like a simple solution. And it would help make these cars even faster. »
« I don’t write the rules and I’m not a designer, there may be reasons why it’s not as simple as I think. But it could be interesting. »
Russell confirms that his team still does not understand why porpoising affects him so much, where a team like Ferrari seems to be perfectly fine with it. He is also surprised by the fact that no one had anticipated such a phenomenon before the start of winter testing.
« We don’t understand it, I don’t think anyone really understands. »
« McLaren are the only team that doesn’t suffer from it, and even they don’t know why. »
« It’s all a bit strange, we have brilliant engineers in Formula 1 and yet nine out of ten teams were surprised to encounter this problem.
