Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from last weekend’s race in Austin, and Mercedes technical director James Allison has explained why. He also acknowledged that the entire incident left the team feeling “embarrassed”. Hamilton’s nearly ideal weekend came to an end when the stewards disqualified his second-place finish following their post-race inspection of his vehicle.
It’s only Hamilton’s second disqualification from a race in his 17 years competing in F1 with the other coming at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix. The Brit had looked on course to close down Max Verstappen for his first victory in two years.
However, he might lose out in his race to finish ahead of Sergio Perez in the Drivers’ Championship as a result of the disqualification. With four races left, Hamilton is 39 points behind Perez, and Mercedes must also avoid Ferrari in the last few weeks of the season.
Hamilton’s disqualification was explained in detail by Alisson, who also acknowledged that the team was “embarrassed” by the incident. After their upgrades in Austin, the team has since moved on and is considering the wider picture.
“The skid blocks are basically little discs of metal that are put into the plank material,” he said on Mercedes’ debrief video on YouTube. “At the end of the race, there has to be a guaranteed thickness. They begin the race at 10mm thick and, by the time you get to the end of the race, they must be no less than 9 mm.
“You are allowed a certain amount of erosion of that skid block by touching the ground but no more than 1 mm, else if your car is inspected and found to be below that 9 mm then you will have been deemed to running your car too low and you’ll be disqualified. Indeed, that is what happened in our case.” He added: “Of course, the disqualification is a significant blow,” he said.
“It’s a miserable feeling. It hurts and everybody here feels it. Everybody is upset, and 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 succeeded, and we succeeded by a sizable margin. The initial feelings of hurt, disappointment, and frustration will fade and be replaced by the hopeful feeling that the car looked brighter with this upgrade package and that we still have four races left to demonstrate our abilities with it. These are the races where we are certain we will stay within the skid block rules.
Mercedes’ goal at the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend is to get back on track.
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