Hamilton and Leclerc disqualified from USGP
Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc have been thrown out of the results of the United States Grand Prix.
The disqualification itself is not a problem. Both Ferrari and merc were hitting the floor pretty hard on the back straight and this was always an issue.
The problem is only few cars being checked. All of them should be checked especially if it is found that there are some breaches. Atleast one car from each team should be tested
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What a weird way for Sargent to get his first point.
But it's a point still
Still counts.
Its very unusual for any car to fail this kind of random plank wear check...infact I cant remember the last time anyone was DQ'd for such an infringement.. With 2 of the 4 cars selected, failing these checks, I wonder how many others would have failed had the whole field been subjected to the same scrutiny... 🤷🏻♂️
If only the rules made any sense whatsoever and they were all checked (which they should be). Then we would actually know.
What if Carlos and George would have failed as well? They just get promoted in the points because of "reasons".
I guess fair application of the rules is too much to ask.
On a sprint weekend, the planks undergo 19 more laps of wear than at a typical event. In this case that’s almost 65 more miles of racing on the same plank. Holding the ”randomly selected cars” to the same floor allowance as if it was a standard race weekend but then NOT checking all the teams when you have a 50% failure rate is just plain wrong. Either have a different allowance on the sprint weekend, check ALL the cars or don’t check at all.
Just a nitpick: it's not always 19 more laps. It's the fewest amount of laps that puts the sprint race over 100km (about 62 miles). At COTA, that's 19 laps. Next time at Interlagos, it's 24.
Does it really work this way? I saw an engineer on Twitter say that they must've been far over the limit for the plank to wear so much.
I don't like stuff like this. Rules are rules, but to disqualify 2 of the top cars just like this after the race kinda undoes the whole story of the race. Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it's good to test all of them.
But those cars would have been where they are because they might have had an unfair advantage. It seems right to me.
Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it’s good to test all of them.
I agree. If the sample has a 50%+ failure rate then maybe it should trigger a wider inspection.
I read that the FIA keeps an eye on porpoising and that is the reason HAM and LEC got selected for a test. Because a high degree of porpoising might result in high wear on the skid plates. So there is some kind of logic that makes sense there. I guess they had to check at least VER and NOR to make sure their logic held up.
Found the source (in Dutch): https://nl.motorsport.com/f1/news/diskwalificatie-lewis-hamilton-charles-leclerc-gp-amerika-fia-controle-auto-max-verstappen/10536672/
Google translate of relevant section:
For example, the FIA informed this website a little later in the evening that it is making a reasoned decision. "Of course we are not blind to what is happening around us." It means that the FIA looks, among other things, at the so-called porpoising matrix when selecting the cars. This porpoising overview shows the bouncing of the cars, which logically has an effect on the wear of the floorboards. Cars that stand out have a greater chance of being examined more closely than others. For example, the FIA has the impression that Sainz and George Russell drove with a higher ride height than their teammates, which would mean they would be in a good position.
The plank has nothing to do with porpoising. It's been in place since the mid 90's and was instituted to enforce minimum ride height rules after Ayrton Senna's death. The ground effect cars that suffer from porpoising have only been legal for a couple of years.
to disqualify 2 of the top cars just like this after the race kinda undoes the whole story of the race.
They can't check for plank wear before the race 😅
Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it's good to test all of them.
It's a random spot check. Not something that would be done to the entire grid. It's literally practically impossible to check for every rule on every car after or during every race, which is why random spot checks exist.
You do a spot check to see if you have a problem. A 50% fail rate is one hell of a problem that warrants triggering a deeper look. God forbid they do a spot check first before doing any other checks on other cars so they know if they need to do further checks.
It is a random spot check but when you have a 50% failrate shouldn't it be investigated further? Imagine going skydiving. There's a parachute spot check that shows 50% of the parachutes don't work and everyone else is given the green light. Would you jump? Somehow I doubt it. The plank check is a similar safety check, except it's done after the race because you can't beforehand verify if the car isn't too low. It's a dangerous sport and safety should be taken seriously.
Also the current approach punishes the driver. It's not the driver's (at least I don't think it is) responsibility to make sure their team gives them a regulation-compliant car. It's the constructors responsibility and the punishment should focus on the constructor, which means at the very least both cars should be checked if one of them fails.
Puts Lando (159) ahead of Charles (151) in drivers championship.
Maybe I'm not reading that right or didn't catch it, but it doesn't sound like all cars' planks were checked during scrutineering. From the same document:
A physical floor and a plank wear inspection was carried out on car numbers 01, 16, 44 and 04.
So all the cars were subject to various inspections, but not all had the same things inspected. In particular, only cars 01 (VER), 16 (LEC), 44 (HAM), and 04 (NOR) were selected for plank wear inspections. And as such, only cars 16 and 44 were found to be out of compliance.
Am I understanding that correctly?
This is standard for how they do technical inspections. They can't check every rule on every car, so they check just a few important ones for every car (fuel, weight, etc) and then do random checks on a handful of cars each for others. The idea is to prevent it from being worthwhile to break the rule, while also requiring substantially fewer resources. That's probably also why the penalty is so steep: if it was a slap on the wrist that you had a small chance of being caught for, you might as well just always run out-of-spec.
Checo lives to DNF another day
I don't envy the engineers making the right height calls after just a practice session worth of data on a bumpy track. Rough way to dnf, and it sucks that 50% of the 4 cars checked failed but that's all that there will be scrutineering wise.
Funny that F1 today is "are they spot checking enough wood planks under the car?". Feels very budget haha
Unrelated to this, but how nice that we have so many comments on this post!
Sure makes it hard to judge the improvements on the Mercedes. I'm really hoping they can challenge Max in the last few races.
Whoa. This is pretty significant.
Great for Sargeant, I guess. Big points for Alpha Tauri - they might just make it to 9th by the end of the season.
Wonder how #TeamLH is doing 🤔
F1 has become farcical. It was always a shitshow but man the past few years have just been bad joke after bad joke.
Are you suggesting it's F1/FIA fault that 2 cars broke the few clearly stated rules? Floor plank height rule is there for a reason.
Half of the cars they checked failed and they didn't bother inspecting anyone else.
THAT is a fucking farce. Just another in a long line of them.
And that stupid fucking plank has always been a joke, as is the fact that they put titanium on it just to make pretty sparks for the cameras.
The supposed pinnacle of motorsport has always been hamstrung by ass-backwards change-averse douchebags and politicking pricks.