Mercedes’ George Russell Suffers With Chest And Back Pain From Porpoising Problems

As the porpoising issues continue for Mercedes, George Russell, who finished fourth at Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, has explained the physical pain these issues are causing.

Russell is having a much better start to the 2022 season than teammate Lewis Hamilton who came 13th this weekend as team principal Toto Wolff branded Hamilton’s car in particular as “undriveable”. But the extreme porpoising issue caused Russell to suffer from back and chest pain during the race at Imola, with his admitting that if the problem was not solved, drivers with this issue would not be able to keep going.

Porpoising causes the cars to violently bounce on the straights meaning that instead of putting their foot to the floor, drivers cannot maintain this acceleration. Mercedes tried to solve this by making compromises on other parts of the car set-up such as tyre grip and other forms of downforce.

Russell commented on the porpoising:

“The bouncing, it really takes your breath away. It’s the most extreme I’ve ever felt it. I really hope we find a solution and I hope every team struggling with the bouncing finds a solution, because it’s not sustainable for the drivers to continue.

"This is the first weekend I’ve truly been struggling with my back, and almost like chest pains from the severity of the bouncing.”

After another disappointing race for Lewis Hamilton, team principal Toto Wolff explained:

“The guy is the best driver in the world and he is not having a machine and equipment underneath him to be able to execute.”

“In a way it's irrelevant whether you come in eighth, or 12th or 15th, it doesn’t matter – it’s all bad. But the real stars they recover, there is none of the truly great ones that didn’t have certain moments in their careers where things didn’t run properly. That is the case now with him and he is going to help the team sort it out. We will stick together through good and bad days and Sunday was certainly a very bad day.”