Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified after last Sunday’s United States Grand Prix due to excessive wear of the floorboards. Guenther Steiner believes the FIA’s argument that it cannot inspect every car is nonsense.
Hamilton and Leclerc crossed the finish line at the Circuit of the Americas in second and sixth place respectively. However, their cars did not pass the technical inspection. The floorboard was very worn, not only in the Mercedes, but also in the Ferrari. Article 3.5.9.e of the Technical Regulations stipulates that the thickness of the floorboard must be 10 mm with a clearance of 0.2 mm when new. After a weekend of racing, it must be at least 9mm thick, so no more than 1mm may be worn away. This was the case with Hamilton and Leclerc, which resulted in a disqualification. The FIA is now under heavy criticism, because some fans and participants also believe that the FIA should have inspected every car. Steiner agrees and is convinced that it will only take “thirty minutes” to inspect the other sixteen cars as well. The FIA also checked the lower body of race winner Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, but they passed the inspection.
Just lift it up and go down
“It doesn’t take long. You just raise the car and get down. I don’t think it takes long to measure it,” Steiner explained of the technical inspection, quoting. Motorsport-Total.com. For this reason, he cannot explain why the underside of the car is not checked in all cars. “The regulations don’t say that they have to check all the cars. But you can say it’s a simple check and they have to do it according to the standards. I don’t know why they don’t do it. That’s a question for the FIA, not for me. “If you want to make a big science out of board measurement, we can do that, but I don’t think there’s a big science behind it.”
Also interesting: That’s why the floor was only checked for Verstappen, Hamilton, Norris and Leclerc
Only thirty minutes
“They loved [alle] cars for a very long time while they were discussing what to do,” the 58-year-old from Tyrol continued about what happened when the FIA found out that Hamilton and Leclerc’s cars were illegal. “In my opinion, in the meantime they had to check Sixteen more cars. I don’t know what the FIA protocol says about what should happen after the race. “Now that I think about it, they should have waited a while,” Steiner said, stressing that he was confident that checking all the cars would only take “30 minutes.” There may be a practical reason why they don’t. Can’t do that. I don’t know.”
