Christian Horner Accuses Rivals of Overplaying F1 Bouncing Woes

Drivers other than Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were vocal following the Azerbaijan Grand Prix about the bouncing they felt.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner did not hold back when voicing his thoughts about the bouncing and porpoising commotion across the grid. 

In fact, he suspects rival teams are encouraging drivers to be vocal about the problems in order to force a rule change. Following the 1–2 finish at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, he didn’t name specific teams; however, both Mercedes drivers have been fairly vocal about the problem. 

Lewis Hamilton was seen gingerly getting out of his car on Sunday, and Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1 that the Mercedes driver was “definitely” at risk of missing the Canadian Grand Prix. Hamilton, though, shared a tweet on Sunday that at least seemed to confirm he will be at the race, saying, “Even when it’s painful, still we rise. Thanks for the love, see you all next week.”

Earlier in the weekend, teammate George Russell went as far as calling the current regulations “a recipe for disaster.” F1’s new technical regulations allow the cars to follow each other more closely, but in an effort to maximize performance, the cars run closer to the ground to help with the efficiency of underfloor aerodynamics.

Horner believes the main reason the two are voicing the issue is because Mercedes has not been as competitive in recent years. He was asked after the race what he would do if his drivers were struggling with an uncompetitive car. 

“I’d tell them to b---- as much as they could on the radio and make as big an issue out of it as they possibly could. It’s part of the game.

“You can see it’s uncomfortable, but there are remedies to that. But it’s to the detriment of the car performance. What’s the easiest thing to do is to complain from a safety point of view, but each team has a choice.”

Horner later said the remedy is in adjusting the car.

“The easiest thing is obviously to raise a car. The team has a choice to do that.” The Red Bull team boss went on to say, “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 then that’s something that that team should potentially deal with.”

But it is no longer just Mercedes being vocal about the bouncing and porpoising, at least after Baku. Daniel Ricciardo said he was left “rattled” because of the bouncing, adding that it felt like “being dribbled by [basketball star] Stephen Curry.” Meanwhile, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly said for the FIA to “save us from ending up with a cane at 30 years old.”

“It’s not healthy, that’s for sure,” Gasly said, per Autosport. “I’ve had a physio session before and after every session, just because my [spinal] discs are suffering from it. You have literally no suspension. It just hits going through your spine.

“The team is asking me, ‘OK, we can compromise the setup?’ and I’m compromising my health for the performance. And I’ll always do it, because I’m a driver and I always go for the fastest car I can. But I don’t think FIA should put us in a corner where you got to deal between health and performance.”

Valtteri Bottas told BBC Sport that the topic is “getting quite serious.” He continued, saying, “[I'm] not sure how sustainable that is in the future and we start to actually see injuries of drivers just by driving the cars—that’s not how it should be.

“We, as drivers, spoke with FIA at the last race and made the point pretty clear that we would like to seek for any options in the future how we can improve it.”