Lewis Hamilton says that he heard from “several sources” that there were more than two cars that had illegal floor planks at the end of the US Grand Prix.
Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc were both excluded from the results of last weekend’s race in Austin when a random post-race check revealed that the floor plank on their car had worn beyond the 1mm margin authorized by the regulations.
However, the FIA’s technical delegate only measured the planks of four cars, with the assemblies on Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and Lando Norris’ McLaren deemed legal.
For practical reasons, the FIA did not extend its checks to other cars, but Hamilton was convinced that others would have fallen foul of the rules had they been tested.
“Firstly I've heard from several different sources that there were a lot of other cars that were also illegal,” he told the media on Thursday in Mexico. “But they weren't tested, so they got away with it.
“I've been racing here 16 years, there's been times where there's been many other scenarios like this where some people got away with certain things, and some people have just been unlucky they got tested.
“So I think ultimately there probably needs to be some sort of better structure in terms of making sure it's fair and even across the board.”
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Hamilton, who had finished second on the road at The Circuit of the Americas after a solid drive, perhaps his best of the year, admitted that his disqualification from the race was a bitter blow.
“I just came out of the press conference, got back, and I was about to get in the ice tub,” he said. “And then Toto [Wolff] came running down and told me.
“Obviously [I was] devastated [as] it had been such a great day and great race.
“But yeah, and then I didn't find out fully until I was back home. Yeah, just a bit deflated after the day, but there were lots of positives to take from it.”
Mercedes said that COTA’s bumps and the car’s imperfect settings due to teams having only a single practice session to set up their cars led to the planks unexpected wear and tear.
Hamilton agreed that last weekend’s sprint format – a first in Austin – contributed significantly to the issue.
“We've never had that problem in Austin before,” he said. “It was just because we had the sprint race as well, so an easy solution, an easy fix for that one, for example, is that we are able to change the floors after the...
“Well, just approach the weekend differently, where the car is not set already from Friday morning, especially at the bumpiest track that we've been on, because that's really the only reason that there are failures.
“It's just because it's so bumpy, and some cars have better ride quality than others. Look at the Ferrari, look at Charles' head and my head.
“We have pretty bad ride, and our heads are bumping around quite a lot because the car is hitting the deck. It's not because we generally are just pushing the car too low.”
Hamilton denied that Mercedes had exposed itself to its plank issue by “pushing the car too low”, insisting on the contrary that the team’s W14 works better with a higher ride height.
“I think firstly we need to just address the point that last year, our car was best when it was low, super low,” he said. “So we were low and stiff.
“Our car works better at high ride heights now. So it's not that we're just pushing the car too low.
“It was just an unfortunate scenario. 0.05 [mm] failure on the rear skid, it's not going to make the difference between winning and losing. So that error wasn't the reason that we were as fast as were.
“So that's why it's just been painful for us. Because, you know, if we had changed our rear springs, for example, perhaps we would have had better ride.
“But anyways, we're hopeful that the performance will continue this weekend. And yeah, just making sure that guys don't overreact. I think we'll be fine.”
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