Ex-Formula 1 driver Karun Chandhok has joked that Lewis Hamilton was “nodding about how good” Mercedes’ 2023 car is during a clip of the team’s shakedown test, where the 38-year-old is seen bouncing.
Mercedes completed their shakedown test last Wednesday and Thursday, at what was an incredibly wet Silverstone National Circuit.
Footage from the team’s running was released onto social media, with one clip having looked mysteriously like porpoising.
Nurburgring Endurance Champion Bradley Philpot shared the clip of the seven-time World Champion’s head bouncing, to which Chandhok saw the opportunity to make a quick joke.
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“Maybe he’s nodding about how good it is,” Chandhok joked in response to the clip.
Philpot didn’t rule out the risk of porpoising based on the clip, but that the head bouncing could simply be due to a “bumpy track”.
He said: “Still does look to me like standard, albeit small, porpoising. It’s definitely not just one bump. It begins as the speed ramps up and continues for the remainder of the straight. And in the wet, with raised tide heights, you would expect to see less porpoising anyway.”
Mercedes, of course, had the bulk of their 2022 campaign ridiculed by the bouncing phenomena, to the extent where Hamilton complained of spinal pain during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The porpoising Hamilton experienced in Baku was so bad, that he struggled to jump out of the W13 after the race, with mechanics having been by his side to support the 103-time race winner.
It appears that Hamilton’s head bouncing was merely due to a bumpy circuit, with clips of George Russell having shown the former Williams driver’s head barely moving whilst driving through the same sections of the host of the British Grand Prix.
Given the clip of Hamilton that surfaced, though, Russell was asked if Mercedes had solved their porpoising problems ahead of the new season.
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The 25-year-old refused to answer and simply said that the “car is so far, so good”, meaning only time will tell if the side have solved their bouncing woes or not.
“You’ll see next week,” Russell said.
“We know pre-season testing in Bahrain will be the first real test of the car. Nevertheless, it looks great out on circuit and the feeling from within the car is so far, so good.”