Mercedes says the floor plank on Lewis Hamilton’s W14 was “untouched” after Friday’s single practice session in Austin, which prompted the team to leave its car’s settings unchanged
Hamilton, who finished last Sunday’s US Grand Prix second behind race winner Max Verstappen, was excluded from the event’s results following a post-race inspection of his W14 that revealed a wear of the car’s floor plank that exceeded the FIA’s legal 1mm margin.
In addition to Hamilton, Charles Leclerc – who finished sixth in Austin – was also disqualified from the race after his Ferrari also failed the post-race scrutineering for the same reason.
After the race, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff reckoned that the wooden plank’s excessive wear had been caused by an imperfect set-up combined with the Circuit of the Americas bumps.
In the team’s post-race video debrief on YouTube, Mercedes technical director James Allison followed up on Wolff’s initial comments and explained that the team‘s observations in Friday’s FP1 led it to believe that it was in the clear regarding its car’s settings before sending it into parc fermé.
“Austin is a track with a very bumpy surface and therefore you are a bit more vulnerable to bumping the car on the ground. We just simply didn’t take enough margin at the end of free practice 1,” commented Allison.
“When we had done our set-up, we checked the plank and everything all looked fine, untouched after the FP1 running. But the results of the race speak for themselves.
“We were illegal, so clearly, we should have had our car set a little bit higher up to give ourselves a little bit more margin. It's of course a mistake, it's an understandable sort of mistake in a sprint weekend where it's so much harder to get that stuff right, especially on a bumpy track.
“But a lesson for us in the future to make sure that we take more margin especially at a track like that with all its bumps.”
Allison admitted that seeing Hamilton’s efforts and great result go to waste had left the team with a “miserable” feeling.
However, all things considered, the Briton was convinced that the undeniable success of Mercedes’ upgrade in Austin would eventually more than offset its disappointment and make way for “sunny optimism”.
“Of course, the disqualification is a significant blow,” Allison added. “It’s a miserable feeling. It hurts and everybody here feels it.
“Everybody is upset, embarrassed to a degree as well because we absolutely don’t like being on the wrong side of the rules and just lamenting the lost points.
“Give it a day or two and that will start to wane and be replaced by the much happier feeling, which is we moved our car forward this weekend and that’s hard to do.
“But we did it and we did it by a decent amount. And with four races left in the championship, four races where I am sure we will stay on the right side of the skid block rules.
“The initial feeling [of] hurt, disappointment and frustration will pass to be replaced by the sunny optimism of knowing that the car looked bright on this upgrade package, and we’ve got four more races to show what we can do with it.”
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