Toto Wolff risks repeating Lewis Hamilton’s F1 disqualification “every week”.
Lewis Hamilton lost second place in the United States Grand Prix after his Mercedes was disqualified for wearing too many number plates, risk chief Toto Wolff said.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said Lewis Hamilton risks being disqualified again for winning the race.
Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who finished second in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, were disqualified for excessive tire wear. Wolff and the Mercedes team made this decision without public debate, and we probably know why.
Team boss Wolff said Mercedes already knew Hamilton’s car was pushed to its limits, but hoped their gamble would pay off and the rules would be followed in the post-race investigation. The car connected this weekend with last Saturday’s sprint race in Austin, prompting Mercedes to change course compared to the usual Grand Prix event this time in Mexico.
“The problem with sprint racing is that the car parks itself and you can’t make any more adjustments,” Wolff told Sky Sports ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix, which is not a sprint race.
Unlike my trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil next week.
“Early on Saturday I thought, ‘Hmm, it might be easy, but it makes a difference.’ I’d rather be disqualified and sit back than finish 3rd and win the race by 25 seconds.
I’ll take disqualification any day of the week.”
Hamilton later claimed that if any other car had passed the test, half the grid would have been disqualified.
Wolff agrees: “That’s the feedback we’ve had from other teams.
They talk to each other and to the drivers.
And from a management standpoint, I think there were probably a lot of teams that were under 9mm.”
Meanwhile, Mercedes technical director James Allison admitted his team were “dismayed” by the disqualification.
In his post-match report, he added: “Obviously getting disqualified is a big blow.
He feels pathetic. It hurts and everyone here feels it.
“We don’t really like breaking the rules and whining about losing points, so everyone is upset and a bit embarrassed.”
After crossing the checkered flag in Austin two seconds behind winner Max Verstappen, Hamilton felt closer than ever to his first Grand Prix win since winning in Saudi Arabia two years ago.
“We were very close, we tasted that in the last race,” admitted the seven-time world champion as he looks for victory in Mexico City as the 2023 Formula 1 season enters its final four races.
“I think if we had the right strategy we would have been much closer to winning.
We have definitely taken it a step further.
In the next four races, it’s impossible to predict which races will get closer, which races will get farther, and which races will get farther apart.
Last year we came close to it.
