Mercedes F1 explains difference between porpoising and bouncing

The two words have generally been interchangeable when used by teams and drivers this year, but Vowles says they are not the same and are generated differently.

Mercedes appeared to have go on top of its porpoising issue with the W13 at the Spanish Grand Prix, but Vowles says the problems are very much circuit specific, with the smoothness of the surface playing a key role.

The issue of bouncing was exacerbated by the bumpy Baku track surface, which caused extreme discomfort for the drivers, and especially Hamilton. The seven-time F1 world champion had a different set-up compared to his teammate, including an alternative rear suspension.

“There is definitely a track by track element and it’s a function of how smooth the tarmac is and the layout of the circuit,” Vowles said in a Mercedes video.

“I would say Baku certainly of the circuits we’ve had so far is on the worse end of it and conversely Barcelona probably on the better end of it.

“So, those two circuits definitely will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the package. But it’s also worth putting a little bit of time into explaining porpoising, bouncing, bottoming – three words possibly being spoken a lot with a little bit of association of being the same thing but they are not quite.”

Vowles noted that, as the Spanish GP indicated, the team has made progress on controlling porpoising. But in so doing, and thus being able to run the car lower, bouncing has become an issue.

“We definitely suffered porpoising in the earlier races and in Barcelona we didn’t,” he said. “And we’ve made a tremendous amount of effort on our package to make sure that we tried our best to resolve it, and I am confident we’ve made a step.

“In Barcelona the car was stable, robust and we could lower it and that’s the key, we managed to create a package were aerodynamically we were able to work with it a lot more, we could work with set-up and we could drop the cars in terms of ride height producing performance.

“Come now to Monaco and to Baku, what that unfortunately uncovered is a second issue that was being masked by the first. I’m confident we’ve made a step forward in terms of porpoising, but we very clearly have bouncing, and to the outside it looks almost identical, but there is a subtle difference between the two.”

Vowles said the bouncing is simply a function of the car striking the track:…