Lewis Hamilton is convinced other cars would have failed the same plank inspection his fell foul of in Austin and insisted Mercedes gained no benefit from the infringement.
He finished second in the United States Grand Prix but was thrown out of the results almost four hours after the finish because the FIA discovered the mandatory plank on his car had worn beneath the legal minimum limit.Mercedes have admitted they failed to judge the ride height correctly for their car at the bumpy circuit, having only had an hour of practice for the sprint event.
“That was the first time we’ve had a sprint race there, they only tested a few cars and 50% of them got disqualified,” Hamilton told Sky. “There are far more drivers’ cars that were illegal.”
Hamilton was one of two drivers to be disqualified after the race, along with rival Charles Leclerc. However 13 of the 17 cars which finished the race did not have their planks checked.
The Mercedes driver believes other drivers’ cars were also illegal and said the stewards’ ruling spoiled what had otherwise been a positive weekend for Formula 1.
“The sport really had such an amazing weekend, such a great turnout and a great race,” he said. “And then every time we take a step forward within the sport, something like that really taints it.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“So I think we we’ve got to do something and hopefully they’ll learn a little bit for the future. Rather than checking everybody and over 50% of the cars failing – which I would put all my money on it, that they would have – instead maybe, for example if we’re having a sprint race, maybe we can should we be able to change the skid, for example, or the floor, whatever it is, on the Saturday night, so on Sunday you don’t have this ridiculous kind of event afterwards.”
Prior to his disqualification Hamilton equalled his best result of the season so far. He denied his car’s performance had benefited from running a lower ride height than it could have achieved while remaining legal.
“One millimetre was not a performance factor whether we did what we did,” he said. “It wasn’t like the floor bowing and giving us extra downforce or anything like that. It was terrible over the kerbs.
“If we had raised the car a millimetre or half a millimetre, whatever it failed by, it wouldn’t have made a difference except for we would have passed the test. But it is what it is.”
Although lowering a car’s ride height can increase the downforce it generates, Hamilton said “it depends where you have the downforce.”
“Some cars have the downforce very low, some gain more at high ride heights. So for example last year we were very low and stiff, but we were bouncing. This year we generate more downforce at higher ride heights, so we actually go for higher. There are some where you have low speed corners where sometimes it does perform better when it’s a little bit lower.
“But it was more just that if you look at our onboard footage, look at Charles and I, we have the worst ride, probably, of everyone, the Ferraris and us. Our heads are bumping around quite a lot that’s the rear just jumping up and down and also we’re riding over those kerbs. Others are also doing those things.
“But if you look at for example, Max [Verstappen], his head is much smoother through the ride phase so they have much better ride than us.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2023 United States Grand Prix
- US GP was Mercedes’ best race of 2023 despite disqualification – Wolff
- Singapore and Austin retirements cost me top 10 championship place – Ocon
- United States Grand Prix result unchanged as FIA rejects Haas’ call for review
- Sargeant admits he’s ‘struggled to use all the downforce at times’ in F1
- Mercedes’ Brazilian GP set-up was “conservative” after US GP disqualification
Robert Henning
26th October 2023, 23:50
Blame everyone except yourself and the team. Auto Motor und Sport reports Russell had a raised rear, potentially explains the performance gap although they could also be doing cover up from Merc.
And unsure if Lewis understands what he’s saying – skid wearing by 1mm doesn’t mean your ride goes down by 1mm. 1mm is an insane about of skid wear given the error margin is a tenth of that.
Just blame the sprint, the FIA, the wind. Try to also accuse others of cheating with no evidence – even better.
Yeah it’s hard for everyone but sometimes you gotta take the L.
Doggy
27th October 2023, 0:15
In what part of Robert’s comment did you find anything racist?
The only person insulting anyone is you.
You may like or dislike his position, but that does not give you the right to be offensive.
For example, I don’t agree with his statement to full extent. I think Lewis was unlucky to get disqualified. He drove exceptionally well.
PS: out of curiosity, how do you know what his race is?
Gusm.ai
27th October 2023, 0:53
I dont know if it is the media coverage, but there it seems to be a tiresome tendency on F1 about failures to comply to regulations.
First it is about track limits – cars clearly off the assigned “field of play”, then there is always some justification, mostly calling the rule enforcement silly, almost sounding like “if there were noboby checking, no one would notice that we break the rules.”
Then, now it is the case of “planks”, sounding like “yeah, I was offside when I score the goal, but every week there is someone offside scoring goals.”
At some point, maybe it was better when we heard less from the drivers.
Robert Henning
27th October 2023, 1:14
Its just gaslighting thats irritating in my opinion. Wolff and Allison handled it much better. This is plain unnecessary in my view and yes the drama is draining over the last 3 years. It’s truly become a mudslinging content of which I won’t lie I do play a part.
notagrumpyfan
27th October 2023, 10:05
It has always been a mudslinging contest, but in years past there was no social media and you had to wait at least a week to see an interview/comment/opinion being published in a motoring magazine (newspapers were rarely involved). And comments from the ‘commons’ were even less likely to be published.
Robert Henning
27th October 2023, 13:07
Fair point. I’ve been watching the sport for two decades but been using social media only recently. It’s probably always been there.
Illusive (@illusive)
27th October 2023, 7:37
This guy is such a drama queen, he and his team gets it wrong and now he is attacking everyone else. No wonder this team is not serious and cant get their act together when a potential win is on the table.
MadMax (@madmax)
27th October 2023, 13:44
just another stupid hate comment of yours
Robert Henning
27th October 2023, 17:37
You have still not given me facts for this incident, Mad Max.
Remember your claim?
melanos
27th October 2023, 21:04
Why bother with the broken record tr0lls?
Prajwal (@prajwal)
27th October 2023, 19:16
This is exactly the reason why I’m not a fan of Hamilton. Such illogical statements intended to mislead the fans and curry sympathy, its disgusting. Maybe try to accept the rules and their application by FIA, instead of blaming everyone but you and your team.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th October 2023, 23:51
Checo has a much better ride than you too, (please) could you swap with him?
joshj81
27th October 2023, 2:00
They tested 4 and 2 failed, money well spent.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th October 2023, 2:38
Fully agree with hamilton on this, some users here are saying he had a significant difference in performance, when that’s just unproven, russell has been massively outperformed in the race in other occasions, and considering there’s indeed a certain chance other cars would’ve failed the test, makes no sense to me to disqualify only 2 and not check the others, once you get a 50% dq rate, either you reinstate them because you can’t be bothered checking everyone, or you check everyone and dq everyone who doesn’t comply.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th October 2023, 2:38
At the very least you check everyone up to 10th until there’s no more in the top 10 not complying.
drmouse (@drmouse)
27th October 2023, 7:46
In with Hamilton, too, that it’s highly likely that many more cars would have failed. 50% of cars in a 20% sample failed, so it’s highly unlikely that 90% of cars were legal.
That said, I don’t think I’d go as far as “putting all my money” on more than half of cars failing. I’d be willing to put a very significant bet on at least 2 more cars from different teams failing, or a small bet on it being at least 50%.
The problem with checking more is time. By the time they realised that 2 cars had failed, it’s likely that most of the teams will have packed up, disassembled cars, etc. If the teams needed to keep their cars available for hours after the race, they’d probably need to stay overnight and only leave on Monday. That’s a significant extra cost and time loss, not to mention the extra cost of scrutineering etc, for a very rare occurrence. As unfair as it seems, I doubt it’s viable to operate differently.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th October 2023, 9:19
Yes, ofc that more than 50% of the cars would fail part is probably an exageration, as we know some teams took precautions for that, but there’s a certain likelihood on russell and sainz and maybe a few cars behind, including some of those that got into the points.
Facts&Stats
27th October 2023, 10:23
The chance that you randomly pick the two single offenders in a sample of four out of a population of 17 (finishers) is 4.41%. Or if they would do this every race, then they would get it right on average once per year (c.p.).
Yes you can call this ‘highly unlikely’ but not impossible.
The chances of 5 times successively red on the roulette is less likely.
Coventry Climax
27th October 2023, 2:53
The thing I fully agree with, is that F1 needs to find ways to amend and prevent these amateuristic situations, for once and for all, be it tyres, track limits, legality checks or whatever.
While I agree with the sentiment, and he might very well be right, the reasoning is still flawed. You simply can’t draw that conclusion, that’s not how statistics work: “I’ve thrown three sixes in a row now, so the next must be a six as well.”
The one millimeter is how many percent? And what was Red Bull’s cost cap overspent, percentage wise?
That’s getting people to measure with two standards, Mr. Hamilton.
Then the story about ride heights is just an excuse. They run lower heights for reasons of performance, nothing else.
I can very well imagine that on a current generation F1 car, 1 mm ride height difference makes quite a difference in performance.
I’ve accused the FiA of amateurism over this in previous replies, so I back his quest to get the FiA to get these things sorted. Not necessarily in a way where Mercedes is the exception though.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
27th October 2023, 7:15
Actually, the statistics are on Hamilton’s side.
Let’s put it this way:
Assume that out of the 15 cars classified, 2 had illegal ride heights and assume that the FIA picks randomly 4 of the classified cars for ride height scrutinizing. What is the chance that the FIA picks both illegal cars for scrutinizing?
Answer: About 5,7 %.
So, if there were only two illegal cars, then FIA was very lucky picking them for scrutinizing. While we can’t be certain that there were other illegal cars, it is very likely.
MacLeod (@macleod)
27th October 2023, 8:10
But this time they didn’t pick them random (they normaly do) now they selected the cars who were visiual had the lowest rideheight. So the first 3 and the polesitter and from those 50% had a fail.
We know Red Bull Afla Tauri and Alfa Romeo had rised the rideheight as they expected trouble with part of Austin. So George and Carlos would probaly also fail the test (or they had there setup different then the nr.1 drivers)
1mm is not much but ofcourse there is some advantage downforce otherwise they would never want have the rideheight as low possible.
SteveP
27th October 2023, 10:11
I wish my eyes were good enough to spot a millimetre difference on something hidden underneath, with no guaranteed correlation on the visible edge between one team’s car and another. Calibrated x-ray vision. Nice.
You would find it hard to distinguish a 5 millimetre difference between the floor edge on two cars about a metre apart, doing it by eye.
A ruler, tape measure or laser distance measure (shock, horror, tech stuff!) would do the floor edge – but still doesn’t have a 1:1 correlation with the plank unless they pre-measured the relative positions, and even then a dodgy flexi-floor (hello Ferrari 2022) would avoid that correlation.
TheLazyLama
27th October 2023, 13:28
Spotting 1mm of ride-height visually when a car is static is indeed impossible with the naked eye.
In this case however it’s about 1mm additional wear on an abrasive resistant Jabroc plank, which requires a massive amount of sustained track contact at very high speed (and therefore high load). Even falling outside of the quite large 10% margin given by the FIA.
Then you also have GPS-traces, accelerometors, pitch/squat sensors a lot of dynamic/loaded ride height footage vs all other cars, and the titanium skid-blocks making sparks to use for picking a car.
There is simply no way you can explain this as faulty on the FIA’s part, except for wanting more cars to be checked.. but try realistically explaining that to the cost-cap, mechanics, logistics schedule, track owners, media coverage, etc.
Turing
27th October 2023, 15:00
If someone paid attention it was mentioned already that scrutineering of planks is not random. Documents from different races corroborate that. Fia chooses the cars based on bouncing and drive behaviour. The likely scenario was that they chose Leclerc and LH and either they expected them to fail or as an afterthought they just added Verstappen and Norris because of fairness image. But in the normal way it would have been only 2 cars. And in the latest Fia release they have already downplayed this, suggesting that choosing the cars is random. And LH also knows this but his character fits with blaming others and positioning himself as a victim so talking about statistics and 50 pcts here is a bit unneccessary. Besides we don’t even know whether teammates had the same setup. Russell’s performance in the race sometime suggested that he is also having thisnkind of setup, but otherwise the difference between the 2 drivers was unreasonable towards LH. At least that was my perception.
Hotbottoms (@hotbottoms)
27th October 2023, 15:45
Mentioned by whom? At least in FIA’s statement it was said that the scrutineering is random. I’d assume that if the scrutineering was based on data, then FIA would say so. Wouldn’t FIA look better if they had the data to show why they didn’t need to check, for instance, Russell or Sainz?
Coventry Climax
27th October 2023, 18:01
Where manipulating results is concerned, as well as fairness for all competitiors, this (the above) actually makes it even worse and even more ridiculous.
So the FiA decides which cars to check based on which ones appear too fast to their liking? The ones that bounce too much? The ones that have a little too much green, red, blue or orange in their livery? The oneswith driver’s who’s skin color they don’t particularly like? The ones that have drivers that oppose certain directions or things the FiA would like to go and implement? That list is endless and direct ground for controversy.
I can still hear the FiA’s previous boss, that dwarfsize frenchman, say how the FiA would like to have less controversy. Say A, do B. The word for that isn’t allowed here, but you get the gist.
Coventry Climax
27th October 2023, 17:46
And that was my point actually; it’s statistics and you can’t be sure.
And the other point is: The FiA should be making it sure they are sure.
Random checks have no place in a billion dollar environment.
BasCB (@bascb)
27th October 2023, 11:58
Good points there @CoventryClimax.
I remember when a few years back everyone was stunned by the great performance of both Sauber cars at the opening race in Australia. Only for them to be disqualified because it turned out that the radius of the rear wing flap (gap?) was not correct, most likely due to a manufacturing error. Everybody, including rival teams, at the time agreed that there would have been no performance benefit. But the rules are clear – the car has to comply for the whole event or be disqualified.
Ride height clearly IS a performance factor, and we know that many teams adjusted their ride height and claimed to have suffered some downforce loss (RB stated this explicitly, I think, Bottas mentioned it as well for Alfa Romeo). I’ve seen mentions that for both Haas and AM ride height was a factor in their decision to start from the pitlane (so they could change the cars). And Ferrari also after the race admitted that they had been putting the cars up higher and higher during FP1, but took the risk of being tight for performance gain, which turned out to be a mistake (a video Ferrari posted on their twitter feed).
So yes, it is rather easy to assume that the cars of both Russel and Sainz would have also failed, had they been measured (Hamilton would probably knows if that is the case for his teammate, but does he want Russel also not scoring?). And it is not even that unlikely that more would have failed the scrutineering as well. But it simply is not possible to measure everything on every car, the FIA would probably need hundreds of people and several days to do so. And all the time we would have to wait for the results to be confirmed. I am rather sure that would not be a better solution either.
Jimmy Cliff
27th October 2023, 4:06
Amazing how Lewis can always present himself as the victim of unfair things in the world.
Dude you drove an illegal car – end of story. Doesn’t matter what others do/did, your car was illegal and you got rightfully disqualified.
MadMax (@madmax)
27th October 2023, 13:49
Adressing drivers directly here. lol
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 13:50
And yet others who likely also drove an illegal car weren’t so he kind of does have a point that if that happened it was unfair.
Tallbloke
27th October 2023, 22:01
Who else car was illegal? No-ones. Innocent until proven guilty. Would you say with 100% confidence that Mercedes have always been 100% legal every race. Chance are they were not but got away with it as they were not checked in those areas. Hell we know they were in Brazil – wing flap anyone… How long was that actually like that gain a minute percentage gain – but a gain none the less until found.
Max’s car checked – Legal
Lando’s checked Legal.
The Bouncy bouncy we need everyone to change their car ride heights for safety Mercedes was too low and found to be.
JOHANNES VAN ES
27th October 2023, 5:37
Re: Hamilton ‘would put all my money on’ other cars failing plank test in Austin”
I just have a couple dollars stashed away for retirement but I would put all my money on it that he would not be wanting the FIA to change things, as he has been saying, if Max was a colored driver.
In 2014 we had 19 races. In qualifying, Mercedes were first in 18 races and first and second in 12 of these races.
Never heard Hamilton suggest to slow Mercedes down because it was too repetitive and not good for the sport.
So it sounds very much a political game that has nothing to do with sport but everything with sour grapes.
drmouse (@drmouse)
27th October 2023, 7:19
I’m not sure why you’re making a comment that is nothing to do with the article itself. Nowhere in this article does he mention, or even imply, slowing Max/RBR down. Your comment makes zero sense in the context of this article.
However, I’ll respond to it anyway: Hamilton has been consistent throughout his career that one team dominating was bad for the sport, and has consistently called for regulations to prevent this even when he was in a dominant car himself. When he’s mentioned it (which he didn’t here), it’s had nothing to do with slowing down a particular driver. So yes, he’d be saying this no matter the race, nationality, gender, religion, sexuality, or political standpoint of the person who was winning.
The fact that you brought it up on an article where it has zero relevance says more about your own agenda than his.
lucifer (@lucifer)
27th October 2023, 10:53
well said
sumedh
27th October 2023, 7:38
I think its time FIA took a hard look at itself and its own technological capabilities and how far behind they are. I can recollect at least 5 major instances in the last 3 years which found FIA wanting. FIA needs an upgrade, and fast, to officiate its own sport!
1) Max vs Lewis Sao Paolo 2021 : FIA didn’t have Max’s onboard view available to the world feed or stewards so that they could see if Max opened up the steering wheel to run himself and Lewis off the road on that lap 48! Apparently, FIA collects only few onboards during the race and others after the race!!
2) Australian GP 2023 FP1: Red-flagged due to FIA’s GPS system went down
3) Canadian GP 2023 Free practice: Session cancelled due to CCTV issue (may be this is on the track, not FIA. But FIA is ultimately responsible for track-readiness)
4) Austrian grand prix 2023: FIA simply couldn’t keep up with the drivers’ violating track limits and took 5-6 hours after the race to dish out penalties.
5) Austin 2023: FIA simply doesn’t have the resources to check all cars for legality.
BasCB (@bascb)
27th October 2023, 12:12
Hm, ok. Are you sure though that the FIA did not in fact do exactly that – look at things and improve them?
With regards to 1. – this is a technical issue where the FIA cannot just simply say “we want all footage immediately”, since the footage was stored on the car and had to be recovered/downloaded first (after the session). The FIA and F1 has since done a lot to improve coverage and have more and more active channels with footage as well as having more people look at coverage. Is it enough? Not sure, but we haven’t seen this situation repeated in the last year, have we?
2. Australian GP – a tech malfunction. In the end it turned out to have been something wrong at an AWS server tied in with that stupit tyre life graph. Not something the FIA should really be responsible for, rather F1. Non the less, maybe it did play a role in the decision to stop some of those graphic.
3. Canada 23 FP1 – yes, this is on the track. The issue occurred during the session and due to the weather. Losing a practice session is bad, but not critical. I am sure that since then inspections have been intensified to make sure we don’t get a repeat.
4. Austrian GP 23 – the FIA too ages to get to evaluate track limits, it was a farce. Since then they have upped their team, improved material available and while it was still far slower than we would have liked in Quatar, given there were even MORE off track moments, the FIA actually did a pretty decent job at being somewhat timely and giving us replays of the moments that led to penalties. The real issue is not the stewarding though, the real issue are track limits and how these tracks invite them vs. how the rules are (i.e. the solution should either change to allow what is doing, or we need better ways to make sure it is not that advantageous and also easier to see/feel from the cars whether you are on or over the limit).
5. Austin 23 – unless you are willing to wait a week while the FIA checks everything on every car with a few hundred engineers, it will always have to be a randomized check of aspects on various cars.
MadMax (@madmax)
27th October 2023, 13:51
they were able to check 4 cars within less than an hour. so 20 cars dont take a week…
Coventry Climax
27th October 2023, 18:25
Also:
That same 4 cars would have been checked 4 times faster with four times the personnel. That’s 20 cars in less than an hour and 15 mins.
But it’s the world upside down: First determine you want them all checked in how much time, and then figure out what and how many people you need for that.
At least, that’s how logical people would tackle such issues.
That same 4 cars would have been checked x times faster with the correct tools available for those scutineering teams. So, 20 cars in half an hour or so, is certainly doable.
Then still, should the number of checks be too large, prioritise them! According to impact on race results, please.
I don’t need to know if teams are fined a 100 dollars within 5 minutes, for that, within a week is fine with me.
But I do want to know, and immediately please, before the ceremony, if a driver is disqualified. Have the ceremony 10 minutes later, I don’t care. Have some unknown celebrity or DJ fill up that gap, if needs be. I’ll just turn the sound off for that period, no problem.
Don’t just say ‘can’t be done’, but look for options, and do what’s right.
Said it before; it’s a matter of choice and willingness; with the amount of money both available and going round (at stake) in F1, it can’t possibly be, and certainly shouldn’t be, a matter of money.
PacificPR (@streydt)
27th October 2023, 8:00
Quite an interesting move from Hamilton – trying to distract the media and spin the narrative – because let’s be honest they only have themselves to blame – in the end they took an estimated gamble with their setups – one that backfired (for unexpected reasons?). I bet Hamilton is correct and maybe a couple more teams and drivers took the same gamble – but they got away with it – so tough luck and don’t do it next time (or do but don’t complain when you get caught (out)).
Ben
27th October 2023, 11:15
What a strange comment.
You start by calling it an “interesting move” to distract from what exactly? Mercedes have already said they made a mistake. There’s literally nothing to cover up or distract from here?
You paint this as some kind of propaganda from Hamilton but then say you agree with it.
He’s not looking to get the result over turners he’s simply pointing out that others probably got away with it, which I fully agree is unfair.
PacificPR (@streydt)
27th October 2023, 11:47
Well I guess that is my point. I get the feeling Hamilton feels the same – that it is unfair other teams got away with it – but they only have themselves to blame. They simply shouldn’t have taken the risk end of story. The fact the FIA can’t and doesn’t check all the cars is a well known fact and probably used by all the teams from time to time. So I don’t know why Hamilton feels the need to make this comment.
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 13:52
“The fact the FIA can’t and doesn’t check all the cars is a well known fact”
That is not in fact a well known fact,
Turing
27th October 2023, 14:45
Yes, for the public, but please retire immediately any team and driver who are not well aware of these rules…
PacificPR (@streydt)
27th October 2023, 17:10
It has been that way for decades and sparked quite some controversies in the 90’s (especially 94). I am surprised about the amount of attention it gets and how the fans and drivers react – it’s nothing new. Neither in other sports – in cycling there are also random doping controls after a race (or even at the riders home or holiday address) they will also the check the winner(s) of a race – but they definitely can’t check the whole peloton. In the past a lot of riders would take their chances (and would even lose a race on purpose the avoid getting caught). So yeah, it’s not always fair and others might do the same (cheating) but if you get caught don’t point at others, just take your loss.
SteveP
27th October 2023, 8:27
I think that one is more an example of how the FIA has not invested in relatively cheap and simple tech solutions to test information gathering in some instances.
As others have pointed out, the plank measurement requirement has been around for decades, and yet they have to do it totally manually – or so they would have us believe.
Maybe a journalist or two could ask them what tests are done, and which are currently a manual process?
That might (wishful thinking) set them thinking about what the tech solution to that test might be so that pre-race, in race, and post race checks are completed as swiftly as possible.
That applies double to things like the track limits checks during qualy.
BasCB (@bascb)
27th October 2023, 12:19
I think you might even be able to find footage of a journalist explaining exactly how this works on the F1 Tv site – they talked about it after the change in how/where (not sure exactly what the issue was) those skidblocks are attached to the car when RB and Ferrari started using flexing front sections of the plank.
There really is no reliable and fast way to measure those parts wholesale. There are some things the FIA checks on all cars (a lot from telemetry, which CAN easily be requested and checked automatically with data analyses) and some they check in a randomized sample of the cars – see the complete overview from race scrutineering after the race in Austin (that is a link to the PDF)
Dr.D
27th October 2023, 8:41
They should have checked everyone after 50% of the checked cars failed inspection.
But LH should have kept his mouth shut about it not having an impact. Especially saying 1 mm wear equals 1 mm ride height.
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 13:56
That is incorrect to say the wear rate is linear to the ride height. Wear occurs when the car bottoms out. If the plank was worn by 1mm more than the limit then raising the ride height 1mm wouldn’t guarantee the issue was fixed. It could be that raising the ride height 0.1mm would give it enough extra clearance that it would bottom out less and hence not wear as often and thus not achieve the 1mm of extra wear over the course of the grand prix. It could very well be that given the nature of the bottoming out that caused the most wear they’d have to raise the ride height by 5mm. It isn’t a linear relationship.
Bob C.
27th October 2023, 9:01
As usual, he was probably responding to a question, so fair enough.
But, for what it is worth, it reminds me of when my sister was caught and fined for speeding. She complained to the officer that “a lot of others were speeding, too“. He just smiled and replied “yep, but you’re the one who got nicked this time around“
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 13:57
I get the sentiment but when you’re caught speeding on the road it’s not while you’re participating in a sport where there is a expectation every one is playing to the same rules.
Ludewig
27th October 2023, 9:13
With both Ferrari and Mercedes, I consider it very telling what they don’t say, that Sainz and Russell had legal wear. If the issue was truly just with one car, I would expect them to say that and explain why the other car was illegal.
But they are acting like both cars were illegal, although they obviously wouldn’t say so explicitly, because then the other car would be disqualified.
How could Lewis be so sure that other cars are illegal, unless he knows that Russell’s car was illegal?
SteveP
27th October 2023, 9:21
Truth be told, he can’t accurately say that. Apparently, it’s all legal if the FIA haven’t looked.
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 13:59
I’m willing to bet Hamilton knows if Russell’s car was also illegal though as you can be sure Mercedes will have checked themselves later.
Moshambles (@moshambles)
27th October 2023, 9:58
Including the ones that didn’t fail? come on lad
BlueChris (@bluechris)
27th October 2023, 10:46
I fully agree with Hamilton here… as i said before, since you find some cars that brake the rules (50% of the tested cars), how in the life of me the next drivers in the finish get their position without checking their cars? its mind blowing.
Imaging Wanda in a 100m sprint race, to catch the 1st 3 to be with anabolics, the next 3 get their position and money/trophies but wanda will not check them for anabolics…
I still dont and i will never understand what FIA did the last weekend…
BasCB (@bascb)
27th October 2023, 12:29
I think this is simply not possible – after the race there is a limited amount of time reserved for scrutineering before the teams have to get their cars back to tear them down and pack them up.
The FIA performs some checks on all cars (all finishers?) and then several cars are selected for random checks of other parts – the teams take their cars back when they are finished with the scrutineering and start disassembling them and packing them in crates and containers. That means that after the measurements are taken for the plank and checked again to make sure there really is an issue, it is highly likely that those other cars have already been taken apart.
Engines and gearboxes are sealed, because they have to be used unchanged for several races, but other parts are packed away seperately.
MadMax (@madmax)
27th October 2023, 13:56
It should be simple to measure the plank within minutes. Get 10 ppl going to the teams and measure them. Shouldnt take more than half an hour.
slowmo (@slowmo)
27th October 2023, 14:03
Then you hold the cars until the checks are completed. What happened at Austin is not acceptable that we do not know other point scorers were not also running illegal cars. If you disqualify one car for a particular offence you better be sure that every other car is legal for that regulation as a minimum. How many times do cars fail scrutineering, it would likely cost very little for 95% of races in the year.
S
27th October 2023, 15:01
Not only do you not know the legality of all points-scoring cars at COTA – you have never known if all points-scoring cars have been legal at any other event either, nor will you in the foreseeable future.
Now there’s something to think about…
MichaelN
27th October 2023, 14:42
While the FIA has access to data to help them select which cars to double check, and only checking a few is fine in theory, the suggestion that there isn’t enough time to check them all is a bit misplaced in the FIA’s premier series. How many people does it take to check the cars? Get a few more on board and it’s all good. F1 is a money printing operation; they don’t need to cut corners on one of their core responsibilities as the governing body.
As said, maybe there really was no good reason to check other cars. But if nothing else, they need to explain themselves better. Tell people how they selected those four cars, tell them why they didn’t check the others, and then move on from there. There is so much media coverage of F1 that the FIA has to do a better job to set and control the narrative.
Coventry Climax
27th October 2023, 18:44
@BasCB:
With that attitude, we’d still be riding horse back and look at the moon wishing we’d be able to go there one day.
And who exactly sets that time limit again? And if it requires more time to have an equal trial befor court, than take that time. You don’t cut short on justice because of a time issue.
So what you’re saying is, the list of critical parts is incomplete. Who decides on that list again?
Sorry, but to a rational person, the system you’re defending makes no sense. And that applies to the people who came up with and implemented that system in the first place as well.
RR
27th October 2023, 17:35
£35m is a lot of money to lose over planks of wood.
melanos
27th October 2023, 22:02
It would be fun if someone accepts the bet and wins
(pedant correction: they are not really made of wood, for many years now)
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
28th October 2023, 2:55
Yes, someone would get rich, as it’d turn out for example a total of 6 cars were illegal!
melanos
27th October 2023, 22:05
Poor driver, sore loser