Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says he accepts the FIA’s decision to disqualify Lewis Hamilton from the United States Grand Prix, saying it needs to “take it on the chin”.
Hamilton originally scored a second place finish at the Circuit of the Americas, finishing just two seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen to earn his sixth podium of the season.
But Hamilton’s car was deemed to have failed a post-race technical inspection undertaken by the FIA, who found the plank beneath his Mercedes had worn more than 10mm.
As this contradicts with Formula 1’s technical regulations, Hamilton lost his second place, despite Mercedes’ plea to the stewards that the extra wear was down to COTA’s bumpy circuit and the sprint schedule.
Wolff said Mercedes had to accept its error on a weekend where the team’s new upgrades aided the performance of the W14.
“Set-up choices on a sprint weekend are always a challenge with just one hour of free practice,” Wolff said ,as quoted by RaceFans. “and even more so at a bumpy circuit like COTA and running a new package.
“In the end, all of that doesn’t matter. Others got it right where we got it wrong and there’s no wiggle room in the rules. We need to take it on the chin, do the learning, and come back stronger next weekend.”
Austin was the closest Mercedes have come to ending their winless streak in 2023, with Hamilton also finishing behind Verstappen in the sprint race on Saturday.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said having just one practice session before cars go into parc ferme conditions played a role in the planks excessive wear.
“Unfortunately, it is one of the pitfalls of the sprint format where we have a solitary hour of running before parc ferme,” he said.
“Without running at a race fuel load in FP1, combined with a circuit as bumpy as this and the parts of the track where the drivers have to put the car during the grand prix, have contributed to the higher than expected wear levels.
“We will go away and learn from this but also take the positives from our experience as a whole.”
Despite the disappointment of losing a podium, Shovlin felt Mercedes had every reason to be encouraged by the new updates.
“Both drivers felt the improvement and it is positive for our development trajectory for 2024,” said Shovlin. “Whilst we are disappointed with the ultimate outcome today, we can be encouraged by the pace shown.”
