Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says he would rather compete for a race win and assume the risk of a disqualification than play it safe and finish ‘P3 and 25 seconds behind’.
Mercedes suffered an exclusion from the race last weekend in Austin where a solid effort by Lewis Hamilton saw the Briton finish second on the road in the US Grand Prix just two seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
Unfortunately, the floor plank on the Briton’s car was deemed illegal, its rate of wear exceeding the 1mm limit authorized by the regulations, a fate also shared by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
While COTA’s bumps were a factor that contributed to the abrasion, the main issue was a sub-optimal set-up on the Mercedes due to teams only having Friday's single practice session on a sprint weekend to complete their car’s settings.
Wolff admitted that Mercedes were aware after Saturday’s sprint that it’s car was vulnerable to a sanction, but the team ultimately opted to take a chance and compete for an outright win.
"The problem with the Sprint races is your car goes into parc ferme and you can't adjust it anymore," Wolff explained.
"Going into Saturday we thought, 'hmm, that could be on the limit but probably with a little bit of a margin'.
"I would take the disqualification running for a race win and seeing the performance, rather than ending P3 and 25 seconds adrift. Every day of the week I would take the disqualification."
As it happened, two of the four cars whose floor planks were checked by the FIA were found to have breached the rules. These were the cars of Hamilton and Leclerc, while Verstappen’s Red Bull and Lando Norris’ McLaren were both cleared.
Ahead of this weekend’s race in Mexico, Hamilton claimed that several sources had told him that many cars had worn floor planks at the end of the US Grand Prix, an allegation with which Wolff agrees.
"That's the feedback we got from the other teams," Wolff said. "They chat with each other, the drivers.
"Also on a management level, I think many, many teams were probably under the nine-millimetre [limit]."
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