Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has revealed that he'd risk Lewis Hamilton being disqualified again for the sake of a race win.
After finishing second in the United States Grand Prix last weekend, Hamilton was disqualified for excessive plank wear, along with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Wolff and the Mercedes team accepted the decision with no public contention, and perhaps we now know why.
Team principal Wolff says that Mercedes already knew Hamilton's car was "on the limit" but hoped their gamble would pay off and they'd be within the rules come the post-race inspections. The car was locked in for the weekend because of the Sprint race in Austin last Saturday, prompting a change of tack for Mercedes compared to regular Grand Prix events like in Mexico this time out.
"The problem with the Sprint races is your car goes into parc ferme and you can't adjust it anymore," Wolff explained to Sky Sports ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix, which won't be preceded by a Sprint race unlike next week's trip to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
"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."
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Hamilton has since claimed that had all of the other cars been tested, half of the grid would've also been disqualified. Wolff agrees, saying: "That's the feedback we got from the other teams. They chat with each other, the drivers. Also on a management level, I think many, many teams were probably under the nine-millimetre [limit]."
Meanwhile, Mercedes technical director James Allison confessed that his team were left "embarrassed" by the disqualification, adding during their post-race debrief: "Of course the disqualification is a significant blow. It's a miserable feeling. It hurts and, everybody here feels it.
"Everybody is upset, 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."
Lewis Hamilton finished second in Austin but was disqualified hours later (Getty Images)Have your say! Do you agree with Toto Wolff? Give us your stance in the comments section.
Having passed the chequered flag just two seconds after winner Max Verstappen in Austin, Hamilton feels that he's closer than ever to finally getting his first Grand Prix victory since coming out on top in Saudi Arabia nearly two full years ago. "We were very close, I could almost taste it in the last one," the seven-time world champion admitted, with eyes on the prize in Mexico City as the Formula 1 2023 season enters its final four races.
"I think had we got the strategy right, I would have been a lot closer to having that win. Definitely we have taken a step forwards. Over these next four races, I can't predict which one we’re going to be closer, which one we may or may not be further away. We were close here last year.
"So, hopefully we will be a little bit closer maybe this weekend. If we get the strategy right this weekend maybe we can really take the fight to them."
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