October 24 ------ Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton and Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc got disqualified in the United States Grand Prix after post-race plank wear inspections. The governing body FIA’s decision to disqualify them came after it was found the planks of their cars had worn too thin beyond the Formula 1 regulations. Mercedes affirmed the measurement performed by the FIA Technical Team and said that the “high wear on the skid pads was probably a result of the unique combination of the bumpy track and the Sprint race schedule that minimized the time to set up and check the car before the race,” according to the document sent by the FIA to the team.
The Italy-based team echoed Mercedes’ sentiments and acknowledged that the result of the inspection was correct. In a video statement posted by Scuderia Ferrari, their sporting director Diego Ioverno explained that there are some measurements that have to be complied with in regards to the bottom parts of the car protecting the vehicle from the grabbing of the asphalt. In line with this, he confirmed that their car “was below the minimum threshold for a few tenths but enough to bring the Stewards to consider illegal our position.”
Ioverno reasoned that because of the Sprint weekend format, they did not have enough time to prepare the car. The new Sprint format introduced this year only allowed for only one free practice, contrary to the usual race weekend wherein there is only one race and teams have three free practice sessions. Moreover, the team’s sporting director also said that they may have increased their car’s ground clearance, but that would compromise their performance. “There’s not a lot to say, not a lot that at this moment we could’ve done. With the hindsight, rewinding the weekend, we may have lifted even more the car, but we would’ve lost performance. And you know we are here always to try to optimize our own performance,” he said.
Three-time world champion Max Verstappen retained his 50th F1 career victory and his back-to-back win from the Sprint race on Saturday. Hamilton was stripped off his P2 podium position which promoted fellow British and McLaren driver Lando Norris to his place. Then P4-sitter and Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz completed the podium. Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, who has the second-most points after Verstappen, moved up to P4 and further widened his advantage over Hamilton for the second place in the drivers’ championship.
Perez now has 240 points while the seven-time world champion has 201. Hamilton’s teammate George Russell moved two places up from P7 to P5. Completing the point-yearning positions were Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who grabbed the bonus point for the fastest lap, and the Williams pair of Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant. The disqualifications gave Sargeant his first points of the season in his home race. ESPN also reported Sargeant was the first American to score F1 points in 30 years. The round 20 in Mexico GP is up next on October 27 to 29.
Source: news.abs-cbn.com
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