2023-10-23 15:13:52
“The skates located in the zone -825 ≥ from Austin in the United States. An observation on the cars of Lewis Hamilton and Charles which led to the disqualification of both drivers. Didn’t you understand anything? It’s normal.
Let’s start from the beginning. After a very good race despite a strategy error with the tires, Lewis Hamilton failed less than two seconds behind Max Verstappen, winner of this Sunday’s race in Texas. Also on an offbeat strategy, Charles Leclerc failed to capitalize on his pole position and crossed the line in sixth position. Except that two hours after the Grand Prix this Sunday, the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers are under investigation because of a non-compliant flat bottom. The disqualification falls little by little.
“The lower the car, the faster it goes”
What did they do wrong? Not much other than bringing a car back to the pits with a non-compliant part by just a few millimeters. “The flat bottom is a composite board which is located under the car and which must be 10 mm thick. F1 tolerates a loss of 1 mm in racing. We can imagine that on the bumps of the Austin circuit, by dint of rubbing, this board became thinner beyond the authorized millimeter,” explains commentator Julien Fébreau for Canal+.
The principle is clear in F1. Regulation is regulation, even for 1mm or less. But why are the regulations on this part so precise? To ensure equality of performance between the cars. With a reduced flat bottom, “the lower the car, the faster it goes, because the more grip it has on the ground,” develops Franck Montagny, again for Canal+.
The two teams still tried to defend themselves to the stewards explaining that “the heavy wear of the protective pads was probably the result of the combination of the bumpy track and the Sprint race calendar which minimized the setup and installation time. checking the car before the race. » A vain attempt at argument since the stewards responded that “it was the responsibility of the competitors to ensure that the car complies with the regulations at all times during an event”, regardless of the conditions.
Mercedes and Ferrari therefore surely made a mistake in the settings before the race, by bringing a car too low on the track which rubbed on the bumps of Austin, a hilly circuit. “Where others were right, we were wrong. there is no gray area in the regulations. We have to accept taking this blow on the chin,” lamented Toto Wolff, boss of the Mercedes team, after the decision was announced.
“Not a lack of luck getting checked”
Charles Leclerc was much more reluctant to announce this disqualification, being surprised to be one of the only four cars controlled. “The fact that only four cars were tested and half of them were illegal makes one wonder if anyone else would have failed this test. It is certainly not a question of a lack of luck in getting checked,” regretted the Monegasque pilot. So why were the three members of the podium Verstappen, Hamilton, Norris in addition to Leclerc (6th) inspected and not Sainz (4th) or Perez (5th)?
The choice of cars checked is, in fact, up to Joe Bauer, the technical director of the FIA who can ask to check any F1 car. This choice is surely based on the observations of the inspectors during the race who were able to notice that Leclerc’s car rubbed more on the ground than the others.
In short, a real story of regulations applied to the letter. In this matter, it is the other drivers who win. Norris recovers second place, Sainz gets on the podium just ahead of Perez. Pierre Gasly gained two places and finally finished 6th. At home, Logan Sargeant (Williams) scored his first point in F1, the first for an American in thirty years. It goes to show that the regulations don’t just make people unhappy!
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