It looks like Mercedes may just have cracked their porpoising problems with the latest mods in Barcelona.

Now for a proper three-way battle!

He is a tiny bit prone to those spins when under pressure, though.  Not as bad as Vettel.

Barcelona Result

1 Max Verstappen Red Bull
2 Sergio Perez Red Bull 13.072s
3 George Russell Mercedes 32.927s
4 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 45.208s
5 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 53.632s
6 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo Racing 59.630s
7 Esteban Ocon Alpine 75.145s
8 Lando Norris McLaren 82.328s
9 Fernando Alonso Alpine 1 LAP
10 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1 Lap
11 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 1 Lap
12 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 1 Lap
13 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 1 Lap
14 Mick Schumacher Haas 1 Lap
15 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1 Lap
16 Nicholas Latifi Williams 2 Laps
17 Kevin Magnussen Haas 2 Laps
18 Alex Albon Williams 2 Laps

It really is a poor F1 circuit ill-suited to the cars now.


Result
1 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:56:30.265
2 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1.154s
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1.491s
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 2.922s
5 George Russell Mercedes 11.968s
6 Lando Norris McLaren 12.231s
7 Fernando Alonso Alpine 46.358s
8 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 50.388s
9 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo Racing 52.525s
10 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin 53.536s
11 Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri 54.289s
12 Esteban Ocon Alpine 55.644s
13 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren 57.635s
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 60.802s
15 Nicholas Latifi Williams 1 lap
16 Guanyu Zhou Alfa Romeo Racing 1 lap
17 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1 lap

Did not finish
Alex Albon Williams
Mick Schumacher Haas – crash
Kevin Magnussen Haas – leak

I am somewhat astonished at the scale of the porpoising issues being experienced by various teams and drivers and the approbation being received by the likes of Lewis Hamilton. It cannot be a comfortable car for drivers to grapple with, seen especially at the recent Baku long straight, where I can believe Hamilton who claimed that he had to lift towards the end of the straight, such was the risk of having an accident.

This cannot go on, a driver sooner or later is going to get a back (or brain) injury that will end their career.

Goodness knows how they can survive up to two hours of this...

Up to mercedes to sort it on their car, come up with a solution and jack the car up in the interim and be even slower.
Its not sustainable.

Same for all teams. The merc is just utterly silly in this regard

Russell says theres likely to be a bad accident at some point, being head of the gpda he will have a talked with all the drivers and got their take.
Given lewis said he was struggling to keep the car on track at 170mph and russell couldnt see his pit board while being jolted around, it inevitable that someone will eventually lose it at high speed because of the mechanical or aero induced bouncing
Possible long term effects will be debated until the cows come home.
Merc especially needs to sort the bouncing out, the argument of develop your way out of it is a cop out because the budget cap means it is not going to be possible, the wind tunnel restrictions mean that they cant simulate it in real time and cfd isnt advanced enough to model it which shows how complex the issue is. All the aero testing restrictions based on last years championship position mean that merc simply cant develop the car. Haas would not be in the same boat in terms of development because they have the most cfd and wind tunnel time. What they dont have is the budget and manpower to do it. Swings and roundabouts.
Red bull don't really have it, their floor works. Mclaren, alpha tauri and williams dont have it but they are slow. They jacked the cars up to alleviate it but this is no solution to an f1 team. Williams dont have the downforce in the first place so its a bit of a moot point. Ferrari have it but have a chassis that seems to have much better control over the mechanical bouncing.
Alpha tauri are either slow or are bouncing, abit like the merc but not nearly as violent. Sauber has it, not as bad as the merc but slower, alpine dont have it badly but are slow. Haas are slow, racing point are slow.

The 'slow group' has 7 teams in it which have either not much or too much bouncing, then there is merc, faster but utterly vicious or slow if they jack it up to stop it being vicious, then the ferrari and red bull in the fast group.

The only team that have the aero under control are red bull, and nobody has the capacity to do anything about their aero either for budgetary and cost cap reasons, or aero testing and cfd restrictions

Yet another f1 shitshow

A pity, then, that the FIA didn't anticipate it as a problem given that we've had ground effect cars in the past and porpoising was a known phenomenon.

I can see that they were after closer racing, but it has failed miserably. All that has happened is one leading team has been replaced by another.

The fia did know about it, and debated having a mandated ride height limit with the teams when they were deciding the technical regulations. The teams said no.