A troubling image left Lewis Hamilton after crossing the finish line of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix of Formula 1. The Briton was chosen by the public as the “The knight of the day”, after getting the most out of a Mercedes with many porpoising problems and finishing fourth. But he paid dearly for the enormous physical effort he put in to control the car’s rebound and stay in that position.

“My back is killing me” he had affirmed in the middle of the ordeal. His body language when he finished the race made it clear that he wasn’t exaggerating. The seven-time world champion struggled to get out of the car, a task that took him much longer than usual and for which he needed help. He sat on the halo and stood there for a few seconds, rubbing his lower back. And finally he walked away slowly, visibly in pain.

The Englishman, who is not playing the leading role of previous years this season, started seventh, had a lackluster start and at a certain point in the test was 11th; but he managed to recover and took 12 points. And shortly after crossing the finish line, he recognized that being able to fight for that crop was the only thing that helped him fight the pain.

“It’s the only thing that helps. That and the adrenaline. I can’t express the pain you feel, especially on the straight,” he said. “It was the worst race of my life, the most painful. In the end I was just praying it would finish. But we were in such a good position, third and fourth, which was a great result for the team. So I did it. effort”.

“Lewis, we all know this is a shit car to drive right now, but we’ll fix it,” he apologized on the radio. toto wolffsports director of the German team.

Mercedes is the team that has had (and has) the most problems with porpoising, that rebound that is generated in high-speed cars, especially on straights, due to the ground effect, and which makes driving very difficult.

Plagued by that phenomenon, the team, which had dominated the premier class for the past eight seasons, had their worst start to the championship since the hybrid era began in 2014. And, surprisingly, the most affected was Hamilton.

The fact is that, despite having a car that Wolff himself described as “unmanageable”, his new teammate George Russell (who joined the team this year) is competing in a very good world championship. He finished in the top 5 in eight dates played and has three podiums, as he was third in Australia, Spain and, this Sunday, in Azerbaijan.

The seven-time world champion, on the other hand, did not find regularity. He was third on the first date Bahrain (his only podium so far) and had his worst performance in the Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna, at the end of April in Imola, where he finished 13th and did not add any points. “We can solve this problem, it will be a painful year but we will overcome it together”, reflected the Englishman after that race.

After finishing sixth in Miami, the appointment in Barcelona three weeks ago fueled his enthusiasm. Because the team seemed to have found a solution to the damn porpoise. And more comfortable in the car, Hamilton staged an impressive comeback, dropping to third from bottom after a collision with Kevin Magnussen on lap one, and finished fifth.

But the rebound reappeared and complicated it in Monaco (eighth) and strengthened on the Baku street circuit, where it was a nightmare for his back, since the days of training.

“It’s a phenomenon we can’t understand. We had so many funds on Friday that I couldn’t finish my long runs because my back was a real mess. Thank God I have Angela for physical therapy every night and acupuncture. . But Saturday This morning I still had a lot of pain. And today I was just biting my teeth from the pain. I don’t want to have that bounce again. “

“It seems we can’t do anything to fix the porpoise, we’ve changed a lot of things but it doesn’t seem like we can …” he added. “Once the problem is solved, we will be present in the race. Today the team made an excellent strategy, but we were undoubtedly losing more than a second just because of the rebound.”

“Lewis is really bad,” Wolff acknowledged, worried. “We have to find a solution. Almost everyone suffers from the rebound. George too, but he is certainly the most affected rider.”

Not even the fourth place has appeased the disappointment for a gift far from what was expected and which could get complicated in the coming weeks. It is that the back pains he ended up with in Baku were so severe that Wolff did not rule out the possibility of “leaving him out” from next weekend’s tests in Canada.

“It could certainly happen. I haven’t seen or talked to him yet, but you can see that this is no longer a muscle problem,” commented the Austrian coach at the end of the Baku match. “This focuses on the spine and can have more serious consequences.”