Lewis Hamilton was back in his old form, chasing for victory in the recently concluded Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. However, he failed to take the win as Max Verstappen claimed his 50th win at Austin. However, Hamilton had a worse end to the race as he was disqualified for having an illegal plank measurement to his car.
Hamilton started the race in P3 and was in contention for the win. However, Verstappen was too superior for him and therefore had to settle for P2. Notably, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari was also disqualified for the same reason.
It was reported that both Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified for the same reason. Nevertheless, the seven-time world champion and his team would be happy because of their performance improvement. However, the question still remains if they got the betterment in performances due to the presence of the illegal plank.
What upgrade did Mercedes bring?
Mercedes, ahead of their 2023 United States Grand Prix in Austin, brought an improved floor for Hamilton. This was brought to further boost their performance in an already inconsistent W14, which made the Briton optimistic about their performances.
Talking about the boost, the 38-year-old said, as per Crash.net, “The step we were able to take this weekend has given me a little bit more confidence in the car to throw it into the corners.”
The improvement indeed helped the Silver Arrows as they seemed rapid around Austin on Sunday. Hamilton easily overtook Norris and was on his way to Verstappen. But in the end, it did not help, as he was disqualified.
The reason for the disqualification was that Hamilton’s car could not comply with the plank limit as it was nowhere lesser than 9mm, the limit that is allowed in his F1 car [F1 allows the wooden plank to be anywhere between 9mm to 10mm because of safety reasons. However, it was different altogether. Even if the upgrade worked perfectly for the Silver Arrows, the plank measurement was enough to ruin their race as a whole.
Hamilton happy despite disqualification
Lewis Hamilton had an improved outing in Austin as the Mercedes driver had the strongest race in the season so far. Therefore, the British driver is nothing but happy with his performance.
Mercedes, however, believes that their performance could have been better if they could have had more time in the form of Free Practice. Admittedly, the Sprint Race weekends do not offer multiple Free Practice sessions due to the presence of the Sprint Race and Sprint Shootout.
All in all, Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton showed sparks of what is to come in 2024. Nevertheless, it is yet to be clear if the Silver Arrows got the impetus in performance due to their illegal $126,000 worth of upgrade.
