Lewis Hamilton rued the return in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix of Mercedes' old nemesis, porpoising, which along with rear end instability challenged the Briton's efforts at Spa.
Although outpaced by both Red Bulls and by Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, Hamilton managed to hang on to fourth, the Briton crossing the checkered well adrift from the Monegasque but a comfortable 17 seconds ahead of Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, while also bagging the fastest race lap and a bonus championship point.
While 'porpoising' or bouncing have rarely been mentioned by the Brackley squad since the team's drastic overhaul of its W14 design back in May, the phenomenon was back with a vengeance at Spa, and was present everywhere around the lap according to Hamilton.
"I think it was kind of a non-eventful race, there wasn’t much really going on, I wasn’t able to keep up with the cars ahead of me," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
"I struggled at the beginning, rear end is our biggest issue. Then we had big bouncing this weekend, so we are back to the bouncing like we had last year.
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"So at the end I was keeping the Ferrari within a few seconds but I couldn’t get any closer to that battle.
"Then to get the fastest lap at the end, it was nice to have the gap to the car behind, it was decent. But it was gusty today and it was very difficult out there and difficult to keep it on track."
©Mercedes
Regarding his car's bouncing problems, Hamilton said Mercedes would take a close look this at what can be done to iron out the issue for the next race.
"They [Mercedes] don’t know [what caused the bouncing] and to me it is a concern, but we will work through the data this week and try to figure out what we do before the next race," he said.
"But I don’t really have much more answers for you. I know what I want and I am praying for it, I am just waiting for the day that we get it."
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