Toto Wolff says Mercedes has accepted the stewards’ decision to exclude Lewis Hamilton from Sunday’s US Grand Prix for excessive wear of the W14’s floor plank.
The deterioration of the element contravened the FIA’s technical regulations which states that wear, as measured at the plank assembly’s designated holes, must not exceed 1 mm across a weekend.
In addition to Hamilton, Charles Leclerc – who finished sixth in Austin – was also disqualified from the US Grand Prix after his Ferrari also failed the post-race scrutineering for the same reason.
Hamilton had finished second on the road behind race victor Max Verstappen and appeared to be reeling in the Red Bull driver in the closing stages of the race until he ran out of laps, the Briton finishing just two seconds adrift from the Dutchman.
Wolff reckoned that the post-race scrutineering drama had been caused by an imperfect set-up on Hamilton’s W14 coupled with COTA’s bumpy layout that compounded the problem.
“Set-up choices on a sprint weekend are always a challenge with just one hour of free practice, and even more so at a bumpy circuit like COTA and running a new package.
“In the end, all of that doesn’t matter. Others got it right where we got it wrong and there’s no wiggle room in the rules.
“We need to take it on the chin, do the learning, and come back stronger next weekend.”
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin echoed Wolff’s comments, agreeing that the unforeseen plank wear was a costly repercussion of the lack of practice running at COTA.
“Unfortunately, it is one of the pitfalls of the sprint format where we have a solitary hour of running before parc ferme,” he said.
“Without running at a race fuel load in FP1, combined with a circuit as bumpy as this and the parts of the track where the drivers have to put the car during the grand prix, have contributed to the higher than expected wear levels.
“We will go away and learn from this but also take the positives from our experience as a whole.”
On the positive side, Hamilton’s performance at COTA, his strongest year-to-date, pointed to indisputable progress in the Mercedes camp.
“Both drivers felt the improvement and it is positive for our development trajectory for 2024,” added Shov.
“Whilst we are disappointed with the ultimate outcome today, we can be encouraged by the pace shown.”
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