Hamilton and Leclerc were excluded from last weekend’s United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas after their floor planks were found to have worn away beyond the allowed amount.
But while both teams accepted their cars did not comply with the regulations, there was a fair deal of intrigue prompted by the fact that the FIA had not checked the planks on all the cars.
Beyond the two disqualified drivers, only Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and Lando Norris’s McLaren were also examined.
The situation of half the cars checked by the FIA not being in compliance with the rules prompted suggestions that the governing body should have opened up its examination to include other cars – as there were potentially others that had worn away their planks too much.
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This was something that F1 co-commentator Martin Brundle suggested in his regular post-race column for Sky.
“After the race four cars were checked, including Verstappen's Red Bull and Norris' McLaren, and both Hamilton's Mercedes and Leclerc's Ferrari were found to have too much wear, for which the only remedy is disqualification, however minimal the indiscretion,” he write. “There can be no grey area on this.
“The next big question however is that if 50 per cent of the tested cars failed, then shouldn't all the finishers have been checked? The answer must surely be yes.”
But the FIA has explained that such detailed checking of cars as complex as F1 is simply not going to happen, as it is not practically possible to go through every component of each classified finisher in the time that is available.
Source: Autosport