F1 News: Ferrari Offers Weird Reason For Charles Leclerc Disqualification At Austin GP
Ferrari has said that a change in the wind direction acted as a contributing factor to Charles Leclerc being disqualified after the United States Grand Prix in Austin. He lost his P6 position after his car's skid block was found to be worn beyond the specified limits.
The FIA randomly inspected four cars after the Grand Prix, including Leclerc's SF-23 and Lewis Hamilton's W14. Both cars were found to have excessive wear on the plank underneath which caused both drivers to lose P6 and P2 respectively.
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The skid block is a plank made of permaglass with titanium blocks carefully placed on it to protect the car's floor from the ground at high speeds when the downforce is high. It was introduced back in 1994 as a safety feature after the tragic deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna.
Since the FIA does not possess the time and resources to check each and every car on the grid for violations after the race, it picks cars as a part of its random selection process to scrutinize.
Strong Intensity Wind
Ferrari has offered a reason that contributed to the car's plank wearing out excessively. The team's sporting director Diego Ioverno told the media:
"Our car was below the minimum threshold by a few tenths [of a millimetre], but enough to bring the stewards to consider [our car] illegal.
"The Sprint weekend is very peculiar. You have very little time to prepare the car, basically only one session, FP1, and then you go into parc ferme.
"We knew it would have been tricky [with the ride height] and this is the reason why we also lifted the car throughout FP1 – and from our consideration, it should have been okay.
"As a matter of fact, it turned out that we were too marginal, and also because of the wind that changed direction and had a stronger intensity than what was forecasted, this brought our car to be illegal at the end of the race.
"With hindsight, rewinding the weekend, we may have lifted even more the car, but we would have lost performance – but we are here always to optimise our own performance."
