TECH TUESDAY: Why gearbox layout could be key ...

As Mercedes continue to struggle with their porpoising issues, leaving Ferrari and Red Bull to fight it out at the front of the races, there is some mystification about why the Mercedes W13 should be up to one second slower than the Ferrari F1-75, even though the latter exhibits fairly severe porpoising too.

At Albert Park, at the end of the straight before the fast chicane of Turn 9, the Ferrari’s bouncing looked every bit as bad as that of the Mercedes. Yet Charles Leclerc won the race from pole for the Scuderia in dominant fashion.

First, we should clarify that aerodynamic porpoising is induced by downforce – and that downforce is the key to lap time. Lando Norris – whose McLaren is relatively immune from porpoising but also lacking in downforce – put it like this: “We don’t have much porpoising. But porpoising is not necessarily a bad thing. For some cars they are gaining performance from the thing which causes the porpoising.”