George Russell warns major incident "only a matter of time" with 2022 F1 cars
The Mercedes driver had already🦹 highlighted concerns about the new generation of F1 ❀cars after Friday practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and his criticism continued following qualifying.
Russell feels the severe porpoising and bottoming-out at high-speed, combined with the ♏cars being run so close to the ground, is “a reci♔pe for disaster”.
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⛄"I think it is just a matter of time before we see a major incident," Russell said in Baku. "A lot of us can barely keep the car in a straight line over these bumps and we are going around the last two corners at 300km/h and we are bottoming out and you can visibly see on the tarmac how close the cars are running to the ground.
"Formula 2 are in the same position as well, they have a similar sort of philosophy, and it is just unnecessary with the technology we have ꦅin today’s environment, it just seems unnecessary that we are ru💮nning a Formula 1 car at over 200 mph millimetres from the ground and it’s a recipe for disaster.
"I don’t really know what the future hoᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚlds but I don’t think we can sustain this for three years or however long these regulations are in force fo🐲r."
Asked if he thinks the 2022 cars are dangerous, Russell replied: "It defini🦹tely does feel dangerous. It just feels unnecessary.
"You are skating♏ along the track and when you are hitting the ground the tyres aren’t in force with the ground so much, so it’s only a matter of time until we see something."
Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton echoed Russell’s concerns after struggling with bouncing on his W13 throughout quaဣlifying.
The seven-time world champion said the i🍸ssue was so bad he was simply focused on “keeping the thing out of the wall” at high-speed.
“The visibility has been the same for us all year,” Hamilton explained. “It is definitely tough. For me it was about keeping the thi💛ng out of the wall on the fast, high speed kerbs.”
Hamilton added: “It is a safety thing for sure. It was bottoming around corners where you are doing 180mph and♒ having big big bottoming an🥀d there is not much you can do to stop it.
“We can🌄not have this for four years of this car, so I thin🧸k they do need to work on it."
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