Lewis Hamilton has been labelled a ‘pantomime dame’ by former Formula 1 race winner John Watson, who says that the seven-time world champion should ‘spend more time in the gym’ in order to cope with the porpoising in his Mercedes car.
Watson’s bizarre comments come on the back off the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which Hamilton called the most physically demanding of his life after the intense bouncing in the Mercedes W13 caused him back pain so severe that he struggled to exit the car at the end of the race.
Mercedes have won every constructors’ championship since 2014 but have dropped down the grid order this season after failing to nail the transition into Formula 1’s new era of technical regulations. Each team has had to completely revamp its car design for 2022 with F1 altering its rules in an effort to allow cars to follow one another more easily and for drivers to race each other harder.
A return to ground effect aerodynamics for the first time since the 1980s has brought with it a quirk known as porpoising, where cars suffer from intense bouncing at high speed on the straights due to air under the car shifting back and forth. Mercedes have been struggling more than most other teams with porpoising, meaning Hamilton and team-mate George Russell are competing for midfield points rather than race victories.
Some other teams have been able to mitigate the extent of porpoising in their machinery, but the sight of drivers’ heads ricocheting back and forth wildly as intense loads are sent up their spines has become very common.
Watson, who raced for teams including McLaren and Lotus and won five races, has outlandishly claimed that Hamilton’s account of the pain he endured during the race is evidence that he is not fit enough.
‘Lewis needs to be careful not to act like a pantomime dame,’ the 76-year-old told the Daily Mail. ‘It is a very difficult car to drive but at 37 the bones are not as forgiving of an uncomfortable ride.
‘This is a whole new world to Lewis. He has had seven or so years when Mercedes have been dominant and it’s perhaps like a seven-year itch. George looked pretty fresh afterwards and finished third to Lewis’s fourth. Lewis maybe needs to recalibrate and spend less time in the air and more in the gym.’
Drivers including Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz all spoke of their desire to see porpoising regulated against by motorsport governing body the FIA in future, with Hamilton far from alone in suffering severe physical effects from the phenomenon.
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