F1 News: Lewis Hamilton Ridicules Plank Wear Disqualification - "Far More Cars Were Illegal"

The seven-time world champion believes a lowered ride height did not cause the excessive plank wear.

Lewis Hamilton finally spoke up about the plank wear disqualification saga during the United States Grand Prix that caused him and Charles Leclerc to be disqualified after the race because their cars were found to be over the limit. Calling the episode "ridiculous," he raised several points for the FIA to take note of. 

Hamilton secured second place in Austin but the excessive plank wear on his W14 got him disqualified from the Grand Prix, while Leclerc was forced to give up his P6 achievement. Both drivers ended up going home with zero points.

But with only four cars having their planks checked, Hamilton believes many more cars would have been 'illegal' if they had their planks checked for excessive wear. 

Speaking to Sky F1 in Mexico, the seven-time world champion seemed frustrated at the ordeal, pushing him to deny that a lowered ride height on the W14 caused the excessive plank wear on his car. Especially after considering the bumpy nature of COTA and the fact that teams were not allowed to make changes to their cars after Friday's qualifying. He said:

“There are a lot of people who don’t actually have a true understanding of what effect the skid was having.

"But basically, that was the first time we’ve had a sprint race there. They only tested a few cars and 50 percent of them got disqualified. There were far more drivers’ cars that were illegal.

"The skid is not a performance element. Of course, if you have a flat surface, everyone’s gonna be pushing the car to be as low as possible.

"But, mostly, some cars handle the bumps better than others. And we’ve had a very stiff and bumpy car for the last two years.

"Ultimately, it failed the regulation and that needs to change. But I think the sport really had such an amazing weekend, such a great turnout, and a great race.

"Every time we take a step forward within the sport, something like that really taints it. We’ve got to do something. Hopefully, they’ll learn a little bit for the future, rather than checking everybody and over 50 per cent of the cars failing, which I would put all my money on that they would have, maybe if we have a sprint race, maybe we should be able to change the skid or the floor, whatever it is, on a Saturday night so suddenly you don’t have this ridiculous kind of event afterwards.”

Several noted personalities have raised valid points after the disqualifications from last weekend, especially on the lines of why the other cars were not checked by the FIA for plank wear considering a 50% fail rate. 

While former driver Martin Brundle thought so, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner blamed the Sprint setup for the mess because after Friday's qualifying, the teams were disallowed from making further changes to their cars in Parc Ferme.