Villeneuve stands by Verstappen in criticism of Wolff and Mercedes
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Jacques Villeneuve is no stranger to physical discomfort in an F1 car. The Canadian shines his light on the debate over porpoising and comes up with the same idea as Max Verstappen.
In the 1990s, when Villeneuve himself was active in Formula 1 and won his world championship, the cars also suffered from bumps because they were so low to the ground. Villeneuve remembers hitting a bump in Argentina at the time and seeing stars. He, therefore, sympathizes with Lewis Hamilton who suffers a lot of back pain from the rides in his W13.
Villeneuve critical of Mercedes
The former driver can feel less sympathy for the FIA 's action to start helping teams with the porpoising problems. In his column on Formula1.nl he shows he agrees with Verstappen, writing, "I understand the concerns and I have the solution for Mercedes: raise the ride height of the car. Nobody is forcing them to drive so low, maybe the car is sensitive to that because of the minimal sidepods."
Villeneuve doesn't quite trust the motives of team boss Toto Wolff and thinks Mercedes is more likely to play the "usual political game in Formula 1" than they are really concerned with Hamilton's complaints. Villeneuve: "Mercedes will use everything to get close to Red Bull and Ferrari, just like they wanted to change as little as possible in recent years."