P1racenews AI automatic summary:
George Russell has revealed how Mercedes once vetoed a F1 testing request that he and Lewis Hamilton had devised to showcase the effects of porpoising.
George Russell shared that Mercedes once vetoed a Formula 1 testing request he and Lewis Hamilton had devised to demonstrate the effects of porpoising. The 2025 season will mark the final year for the sport’s current ground effects cars. Despite being banned in the early 1980s, ground effects made a comeback in F1 from 2022 but caused porpoising issues during pre-season testing, posing safety risks for drivers. Russell described the cars with ground effects as “brutal” and noted that a simulator session with Hamilton led to a request to showcase porpoising, which was rejected for safety reasons. As the current F1 era comes to an end, drivers like Russell are relieved that the intense physical strain caused by porpoising will soon be a thing of the past with the introduction of all-new 2026 regulations.
