Lewis Hamilton expressed his frustrations after the stewards disqualified him from his second-place finish at the United States Grand Prix last weekend. Soon after the officials disqualified the 38-year-old due to a technical infringement involving the wear of the planks, he claimed that most other teams were also likely to have had illegal cars. However, F1 expert Peter Windsor disagrees with Hamilton’s accusations.
The 71-year-old reminded fans of an old rule that would make the Mercedes driver’s allegations redundant. “This rule testing one car from the top four has been in F1 for many, many years. It’s because they want to save time and it’d take forever to do every car,” explained the Australian via his official YouTube channel (as quoted by planetf1.com).
Windsor simply pointed out the rule but did admit that the stewards could carry out tests on more cars after the race. According to him, at least four more drivers – Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, and Daniel Ricciardo – would have been in trouble if the officials had checked more cars.
Since Hamilton was one of the drivers who were disqualified, Mercedes failed to capitalize on the improvement they had made to their car. This is because the race in Austin last week was arguably the closest the Silver Arrows have come to a race win. Hamilton crossed the line in second, just 2.2 seconds behind race-winner Max Verstappen.
Is Lewis Hamilton closer than ever to a race win?
Following the conclusion of the US GP, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff explained how delighted he was to see the pace that Lewis Hamilton demonstrated in Austin. The Austrian believes that their upgrades have definitely helped improve the pace of the car as he explained how Mercedes struggled at Suzuka, which is a similar track to the Circuit of the Americas.
“When I look back at the Esses [in Japan], we were slow. Here, it was our best sector. So overall we need to be pleased,” said Wolff in his conversation with Autosport. Hamilton’s pace was indeed impeccable, as he gave no breathing space to Max Verstappen or Red Bull.
However, since the Briton lost his second place due to disqualification, he also suffered a blow in the championship. Instead of closing the gap to second-placed Sergio Perez, Hamilton now finds himself 39 points behind the Mexican, with four races remaining.
