Windfall for Pérez
Lewis Hamilton stood on the podium with a smile from ear to ear yesterday, but after the race the news came that he had been disqualified. Charles Leclerc also sees his result in Austin go up in smoke.
Lewis Hamilton seemed to have finished the United States Grand Prix in second, but shortly after the race it was announced that he would not be awarded any points at all. Hamilton has been retroactively disqualified and Charles Leclerc, who finished sixth, also sees his result go up in smoke. In both cars, a technical inspection after the race revealed that the floor had worn too far. The ‘plank’ and the wear pads under the car must have a minimum thickness after the race, but that was not the case with the Mercedes and Ferrari of Hamilton and Leclerc respectively.
As a result of the disqualification, Lando Norris (McLaren) moves up to second place and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) still finishes on the podium. The biggest windfall is in fact for Sergio Pérez, Max Verstappen’s teammate. He initially saw his lead over Hamilton in the battle for second place in the World Championship shrink further, but now it is growing. Pérez is now classified fourth in the US and is now 39 points ahead of Hamilton in the championship.
Floor wear
The wooden one skid plate, which is located under the floor of the car, may partially wear off during a race, a maximum of 1 millimeter. This way the FIA can monitor whether an F1 car is not too low. For safety reasons, the floor of the car should not be too close to the ground. Because teams want to limit the risk that the skid plate wears off too far, they placed near the measuring points of the skid plate metal blocks. The FIA allows this and from 2015 the regulations require that the blocks must be made of titanium. Those blocks create the shower of sparks that you sometimes see behind F1 cars. Despite the presence of those blocks, too much wear was found on the floor on the cars of Hamilton and Leclerc.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl