(Motorsports news) The FIA only measured the planks of four cars after the race, and found that those of Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were illegal, leading to the disqualifications of the two drivers. The cars of Max Verstappen and Lando Norris were deemed legal, but despite the 50% failure rate on the bumpy COTA track, the FIA stuck with its usual protocols and opted not to sample any other cars further down the order.
For the first time since his disqualification, Hamilton expressed his disappointment at losing his second-place finish. “I just came out of the press conference, got back, and I was about to get in the ice tub,” he told reporters. “And then Toto Wolff ran down and told me.” Obviously, I was upset because it had been such a fantastic day and race. “But, yeah, and then I didn’t find out everything until I got home.” Yeah, I was a little bummed after the day, but there were a lot of things to take away.”
When asked what he thought about only four vehicles being tested, Hamilton was emphatic. “Firstly I’ve heard from several different sources that there were a lot of other cars that were also illegal,” he went on to say. “However, because they were not tested, they got away with it.” I’ve been racing here for 16 years, and there have been many more circumstances like this when some drivers got away with certain things and others were simply unlucky enough to be tested.
“So I think ultimately there probably needs to be some sort of better structure in terms of making sure it’s fair and even across the board.” Hamilton noted that the sprint weekend arrangement, with car specs set after FP1, makes such incidents more likely. “We’ve never had that problem in Austin before,” he went on to say. “It was only because we also had the sprint race, so an easy answer, an easy fix for that one, for example, is that we can replace the floors after, simply approach the weekend differently, where the car is not already set up from Friday morning.
“Especially at the bumpiest track we’ve been on, because that’s really the only reason there are failures, and some cars have better ride quality than others.” Take a look at the Ferrari, Charles’ head, and my head. “We’re having a rough ride, and our heads are bouncing around a lot because the car is hitting the deck.” It’s not because we’re normally driving too slowly.”
Hamilton disputed that the team had pushed the limitations with a low ride height in pursuit of performance, which could explain why the W14 was so competitive at COTA.
Also read: Mercedes: Hamilton’s vehicle plank was “untouched” in practice at the F1 US Grand Prix
