Mercedes boss Toto Wolff feels that the FIA shouldn’t have investigated the technical infringement which disqualified Lewis Hamilton from Qualifying.
After scrutineering by the FIA stewards, Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the results of qualifying as his rear wing’s gap when DRS was activated was 0.2mm more than the legal gap. Thus, the defending champion had to start the sprint race on Saturday from the back.
Although Hamilton minimises damage from the disqualification, Toto Wolff believes that the FIA changed their own ‘modus operandi’ while investigating the Mercedes rear wing.
While the rear wing in question is still impounded by the stewards, Mercedes and the FIA agree that the infringement was not deliberate and was caused due to damage during the qualifying session.
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The stewards also maintained that had Mercedes reported the damage during the session. They would have been allowed to replace the wing with another identical one. However, their failure to complete the session with the tainted wing left them no option but to disqualify the car.
Toto Wolff believes that the reporting of the rear wing test’s failure by the delegates was at odds with how the FIA usually deals with such situations.
“I don’t want to pick out any individuals because everybody tries to do the best possible job in their role, but something went against the modus operandi this last 24 hours, which was either under pressure from other stakeholders, or just different,” said Wolff on Saturday.
“If the modus operandi is different now, you maybe need to look at others also with a more strict and severe eye. I can tell you that in the next few races we are going to look at every single bit of race tape that’s going to fall off a car and ask questions.”
“In a way, if there was a gentlemen’s agreement — if such a thing as a gentlemen’s agreement exists in Formula One, because there are no gentleman — then now it doesn’t anymore.”
“So you have no leniency of fixing things on a car. If it’s broken, it’s broken and you can’t touch it. This is how it’s going to go this year [from now on].”
The decision could affect the championship battle
Wolff believed that they should have been allowed to fix the wing instead of having it directly reported to the stewards after the session was completed.
This put the FIA in a problematic situation as well as they had to roll out a very ‘unpopular’ decision of disqualifying Hamilton from the quali results.
After a breathtaking drive by the British driver, starting from the back of the grid, he reached P5 at the end of the 24 laps. Compounded by the five-place grid penalty for an ICE change, Hamilton will start the main race from P10. Eight places behind main title rival Max Verstappen.
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Wolff continued to express his disappointment at the situation the FIA put them in.
“To be honest until late this afternoon we believed it was OK, because the wing was damaged, one side was OK, the middle was OK, the right side was not OK, and that actually means we had a performance disadvantage.”
Wolff shared that he couldn’t believe the punishment which was given to Hamilton when he first heard it. “I thought that Ron Meadows [Mercedes team manager] was making a joke when I saw the WhatsApp [explaining the decision].
