Lewis Hamilton won’t mind the Austin DQ as long as his car conforms to the regulations at Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix whilst retaining its performance gains.
The new floor brought to the United States Grand Prix gave him his most competitive drive since 2021 and augurs well for the final four races as Mercedes seek to narrow the gap to Red Bull before the season’s end.
Why was Hamilton disqualified?
None at Mercedes were complaining when the skid block, or plank that runs down the centre of the car’s floor and protects against bumps and kerbs, failed to meet the regulatory standard as a result of excessive wear and tear. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was also thrown out for the same reason.
The skid block must be 10mm thick, with a tolerance of 0.2mm. A thickness of 9mm is allowed at the end of the race. The integrity of the plank is critical in protecting against flexi floors, which confer an aerodynamic advantage but are banned under the present rules.
Once the ride height is determined for the race, and this can be as low as teams dare, it cannot be changed whilst under parc ferme conditions, which prevent any alterations being made to the car set-up.
Running was compromised by the sprint format, which meant the cars had only one practice session on Friday morning before submitting to parc ferme rules ahead of qualifying on Friday afternoon, and the sprint sessions on Saturday.
Since the Austin circuit is one of the bumpiest on the calendar, the floors take more of a battering, and given this was the first use of the upgraded floor, Mercedes had no data references on which to draw.
They could have opted to start in the pit lane, which would have allowed them to work on the car, but with Hamilton third on the grid, they erred on the side of ambition.
Are Mercedes back in the game?
Hamilton enjoyed his best race of the year, finishing within two seconds of winner Max Verstappen until the beak disqualified his car four hours after the race had finished.
Data is still being processed but early findings suggest the skid block deformation did not contribute to any performance gain, which was estimated at about one tenth of a second per lap in Austin.
The uplift in mood and confidence in Hamilton had a commensurate impact, lifting his performance to heights we have not seen since 2021 when he went head-to-head with Verstappen in that unforgettable season. Taking into account a less than optimal race execution Hamilton might even have crossed the line first. He lost a second to Verstappen through the first pit stop and lost more time in staying out longer than Red Bull on degrading tyres during his first stint.
“Overall, we still didn’t perform optimally,” Hamilton said. “We had good pace and I was feeling great in the car. I feel positive as we’re moving forward, even if reflecting on it we could have possibly won. It is of course disappointing to be disqualified post-race but that doesn’t take away from the progress we’ve made this weekend.”
Pit stop rethink
Meanwhile, Mercedes have promised a review of pit stop protocols after consistently losing time.
Hamilton’s two stops in Austin were timed at 3.6 and 3.4 seconds respectively, a second slower in each case than Red Bull’s, a deficit that in other circumstances would have been the difference between winning and losing. The quickest time was set by Alpine, who sent Pierre Gasly out 2.2 seconds after he hit the blocks.
“Our mindset in the last 12 years, [has been] we don’t need to be world champions in pitstops,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said. “We need to avoid very slow pitstops. And it’s coming to a situation now where we realise that it has got so competitive we just need to ramp up our game.”