The disqualification itself is not a problem. Both Ferrari and merc were hitting the floor pretty hard on the back straight and this was always an issue.
The problem is only few cars being checked. All of them should be checked especially if it is found that there are some breaches. Atleast one car from each team should be tested
Imagine if we had a US GP and only a handful of cars finished the race…
Imagine if we had a US GP and only a handful of cars
finishedstarted the race…I didn’t watch f1 for years after that.
What are you referencing?
The 2005 Indianapolis F1 race where only 6 cars started because of tire safety issues.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_United_States_Grand_Prix
Hahaha holy shit the fans in the stands had to be pretty furious
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Its very unusual for any car to fail this kind of random plank wear check…infact I cant remember the last time anyone was DQ’d for such an infringement… With 2 of the 4 cars selected, failing these checks, I wonder how many others would have failed had the whole field been subjected to the same scrutiny… 🤷🏻♂️
If only the rules made any sense whatsoever and they were all checked (which they should be). Then we would actually know.
What if Carlos and George would have failed as well? They just get promoted in the points because of “reasons”.
I guess fair application of the rules is too much to ask.
Fair application of the rules has never been the FIA’s MO.
And what if 2 back markers failed and nobody cared. Random is about as fair as you can get. Just because it doesn’t seem fair doesn’t mean it wasn’t.
Universally applying a rule by measuring all competitors shouldn’t be contentious.
People baby the FIA too much. I am sure they can find a way to make it work–especially considering 50% of the cars they randomly tested failed.
Pretty much every Motorsport body does it this way iirc. Nascar doesn’t inspect every car after every race in excruciating detail, they just spot check anything they think could have been manipulated.
That is very different that’s a spec series
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What a weird way for Sargent to get his first point.
There’s still a bald eagle screech audible somewhere.
Boring fact! The screech is actually a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles make this annoying whimpy whine like a chick wanting food, but they have a pretty song. If you hear them, you’d understand why Americans dub the hawk over.
That fact was way too interesting to be labeled boring.
But it’s a point still
Still counts.
On a sprint weekend, the planks undergo 19 more laps of wear than at a typical event. In this case that’s almost 65 more miles of racing on the same plank. Holding the ”randomly selected cars” to the same floor allowance as if it was a standard race weekend but then NOT checking all the teams when you have a 50% failure rate is just plain wrong. Either have a different allowance on the sprint weekend, check ALL the cars or don’t check at all.
Just a nitpick: it’s not always 19 more laps. It’s the fewest amount of laps that puts the sprint race over 100km (about 62 miles). At COTA, that’s 19 laps. Next time at Interlagos, it’s 24.
Does it really work this way? I saw an engineer on Twitter say that they must’ve been far over the limit for the plank to wear so much.
Puts Lando (159) ahead of Charles (151) in drivers championship.
I don’t like stuff like this. Rules are rules, but to disqualify 2 of the top cars just like this after the race kinda undoes the whole story of the race. Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it’s good to test all of them.
But those cars would have been where they are because they might have had an unfair advantage. It seems right to me.
Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it’s good to test all of them.
I agree. If the sample has a 50%+ failure rate then maybe it should trigger a wider inspection.
I read that the FIA keeps an eye on porpoising and that is the reason HAM and LEC got selected for a test. Because a high degree of porpoising might result in high wear on the skid plates. So there is some kind of logic that makes sense there. I guess they had to check at least VER and NOR to make sure their logic held up.
Found the source (in Dutch): https://nl.motorsport.com/f1/news/diskwalificatie-lewis-hamilton-charles-leclerc-gp-amerika-fia-controle-auto-max-verstappen/10536672/
Google translate of relevant section:
For example, the FIA informed this website a little later in the evening that it is making a reasoned decision. “Of course we are not blind to what is happening around us.” It means that the FIA looks, among other things, at the so-called porpoising matrix when selecting the cars. This porpoising overview shows the bouncing of the cars, which logically has an effect on the wear of the floorboards. Cars that stand out have a greater chance of being examined more closely than others. For example, the FIA has the impression that Sainz and George Russell drove with a higher ride height than their teammates, which would mean they would be in a good position.
The plank has nothing to do with porpoising. It’s been in place since the mid 90’s and was instituted to enforce minimum ride height rules after Ayrton Senna’s death. The ground effect cars that suffer from porpoising have only been legal for a couple of years.
to disqualify 2 of the top cars just like this after the race kinda undoes the whole story of the race.
They can’t check for plank wear before the race 😅
Additionally, if 2 out of 4 cars fail the test, maybe it’s good to test all of them.
It’s a random spot check. Not something that would be done to the entire grid. It’s literally practically impossible to check for every rule on every car after or during every race, which is why random spot checks exist.
You do a spot check to see if you have a problem. A 50% fail rate is one hell of a problem that warrants triggering a deeper look. God forbid they do a spot check first before doing any other checks on other cars so they know if they need to do further checks.
It is a random spot check but when you have a 50% failrate shouldn’t it be investigated further? Imagine going skydiving. There’s a parachute spot check that shows 50% of the parachutes don’t work and everyone else is given the green light. Would you jump? Somehow I doubt it. The plank check is a similar safety check, except it’s done after the race because you can’t beforehand verify if the car isn’t too low. It’s a dangerous sport and safety should be taken seriously.
Also the current approach punishes the driver. It’s not the driver’s (at least I don’t think it is) responsibility to make sure their team gives them a regulation-compliant car. It’s the constructors responsibility and the punishment should focus on the constructor, which means at the very least both cars should be checked if one of them fails.
Maybe I’m not reading that right or didn’t catch it, but it doesn’t sound like all cars’ planks were checked during scrutineering. From the same document:
A physical floor and a plank wear inspection was carried out on car numbers 01, 16, 44 and 04.
So all the cars were subject to various inspections, but not all had the same things inspected. In particular, only cars 01 (VER), 16 (LEC), 44 (HAM), and 04 (NOR) were selected for plank wear inspections. And as such, only cars 16 and 44 were found to be out of compliance.
Am I understanding that correctly?
This is standard for how they do technical inspections. They can’t check every rule on every car, so they check just a few important ones for every car (fuel, weight, etc) and then do random checks on a handful of cars each for others. The idea is to prevent it from being worthwhile to break the rule, while also requiring substantially fewer resources. That’s probably also why the penalty is so steep: if it was a slap on the wrist that you had a small chance of being caught for, you might as well just always run out-of-spec.
That’s a good take.
It’s fair, but if they’re finding cars fail the checks, then all cars on the grid should be checked for the same failure.
Is the time a limiting factor here? I read the results of 4 cars checks came 2 hours after the GP finished. Given we have night races that are followed up with FP1 less that 5 days later (following Friday morning), there possibly a logistics issue if doing those checks across 20 cars can’t be completed the evening of the race for any reason. Possibly isn’t just a headcount issue too if particular equipments needed? There’s time needed to ship the cars to other countries.
Watching Ted’s notebook teams are often well into teardown not long after the race ends, so perhaps losing a night becomes an issue for the back to back races.
I’m not sure to be honest, but just a thought.
No that’s a good point on the timescales that I hadn’t considered. Although I assume the planks detach - could they all be handed over the the FIA for testing at a later date?
I am guessing FIA mandates that no work be done on the car if it had been selected for random tests. How will you ensure it is the same plank if it is delievered well after the car has been disassembled
Most parts appear to have the irremovable/tamper proof stickers on with a serial number. Put one on the plank which is registered with the FIA. When it’s sent to the FIA after they’ll know if it’s the correct plank or not.
I seem to be in the minority here but isn’t that a terrible waste of time? What would it achieve maybe 2 or 3 more disquals, fans are even more outraged. Doesn’t seem like a productive use of time. The rules are the way they are to make it not worth it for teams to run out of compliance cars, if a team flies too close to the sun and gets caught then good, its working. The system did its job.
But then that’s like saying ‘we should only check track limits for 20% of the cars running’.
If the rules said that then yeah, but they don’t. The rules do however say we will randomly check x number of cars for rule x on any given weekend and that’s what they did. Are you suggesting the fia change the rules in the middles of a weekend in order to disqualify more cars? That would be an outrage.
No, I’m suggesting the rules are wrong to start with.
Checo lives to DNF another day
I don’t envy the engineers making the right height calls after just a practice session worth of data on a bumpy track. Rough way to dnf, and it sucks that 50% of the 4 cars checked failed but that’s all that there will be scrutineering wise.
Funny that F1 today is “are they spot checking enough wood planks under the car?”. Feels very budget haha
Unrelated to this, but how nice that we have so many comments on this post!
Hamilton put on one of the best shows around today to get thrown out over a plank measurement.
This is why aliens don’t stop here.
The team breached the regulations and was thus disqualified. What’s the issue?
Random checks seem odd to me
There’s only 20 cars, just check them all
Agreed, if by random check they found 2 of 4, they should do check all the grid. Jezz
Imagine this was some sort of safety check, and after finding 50% of your sample faulty you just stopped checking. Well done F1.
Yea this decision has a lot of “covid cases keep climbing because they keep testing” energy. If 50% fail then you need to test the whole damn field lol
But it’s not a safety check. Its a technical rules check. They applied the rules as they are written, is this not what everyone wants? If they randomly changed the rules in order to DQ more cars, that would be an outrage. I think a lot of F1 fans need to actually think about what they they are asking for.
Plenty of things in F1 are random checks. Weighing the cars during quali is random. The randomness is enough of a deterrent that teams do not run cars below the minimum weight. But things like plank wear should be checked for all because the teams cannot accurately know how much the plank is worn especially on sprint weekends.
Random checks are fine, but if it’s something that can affect all cars then they should all be checked. So for plank wear, if 1 of the 4 fails, all 20 cars should be checked.
If the drs wing opening too far is checked and failed both of the cars from that team should be checked, as that’s unlikely to apply to the other teams.
The FIA can’t check every car on the grid for every single rule in the regulations. It’s not practical, and is a waste of time and money.
No but if they have reason to suspect a large number of cars aren’t in compliance then they should check, and then decide what to do. Instead of “unlucky we checked you today”.
He probably wouldn’t even have made the top 5 if the car was at a legal height. His performance was a direct consequence of running the car too low.
Sure makes it hard to judge the improvements on the Mercedes. I’m really hoping they can challenge Max in the last few races.
Whoa. This is pretty significant.
Great for Sargeant, I guess. Big points for Alpha Tauri - they might just make it to 9th by the end of the season.
Wonder how #TeamLH is doing 🤔
F1 has become farcical. It was always a shitshow but man the past few years have just been bad joke after bad joke.
Are you suggesting it’s F1/FIA fault that 2 cars broke the few clearly stated rules? Floor plank height rule is there for a reason.
Yes, by having a parc ferme from Friday morning on a bumpy track that’s been patched like a quilt. When you have a 50% fail rate from more than one team…
You can’t just extrapolate a datapoint from 4 to 20 and expect to keep the fail rate constant. I don’t exactly like the sprint format either, but this is not exactly a good argument to scrap it.
On a sprint weekend where the plank gets 19 more laps of abuse than an average race? Yes, yes you can.
No, you can’t.
Teams knew that it would be a sprint weekend. Teams knew Austin is bumpy as hell. Teams therefore knew that the floor would get 19 more laps of abuse.
Mercedes has already admitted fault and I doubt either them or ferrari will appeal this. It was their mistake.
I like shitting on FIA as much as the next guy, but why shit on them for stupid reasons?
Gee, if only they’d tested…
Half of the cars they checked failed and they didn’t bother inspecting anyone else.
THAT is a fucking farce. Just another in a long line of them.
And that stupid fucking plank has always been a joke, as is the fact that they put titanium on it just to make pretty sparks for the cameras.
The supposed pinnacle of motorsport has always been hamstrung by ass-backwards change-averse douchebags and politicking pricks.
They randomly check 4 cars, 2 fail. The check does not take a minute, unlike the weighing of the cars. I could not find the exact figure on how long this test takes to do, but given how precise it is, I would assume a good while.
What are you suggesting to be changed? Are we supposed to hold the award ceremony until every single car is checked to minute detail? Or do we just not do any checks at all?
I get that it’s frustrating to see 2 drivers get dsq’d for seemingly minor reasons, but rules are rules. Especially after the 2021 controversy.
for seemingly minor reasons
It’s the anti-porpoising regulation. It’s there so drivers don’t get health issues in a 100 minute race from bumping a thousand times.
Thank you for the clarification
The “clarification” is wrong. It has nothing to do with porpoising. Unless this porpoising was somehow present on non-ground effect cars in the mid 90’s when the plank was introduced.
This is entirely wrong. The plank has been in place since the mid 90’s as a ride height check. This porpoising shit hasn’t existed for more than a couple of years.
Are we supposed to hold the award ceremony until every single car is checked to minute detail?
Who the fuck cares about an awards ceremony? That has nothing to do with anything.
If you randomly check four cars and half of them fail tech, you inspect EVERY car. The odds that you pull four and two of them happen to be the ONLY two cars with illegal floors is so low as to be meaningless. The much more likely outcome is more cars are illegal and if you have reason to believe more cars are illegal but you choose not to pursue that probability, you are not doing your job as the supposed arbiters of the rules.
Yes, rules are rules. Which is why this random check nonsense should have died decades ago. Either apply them or don’t. No clown show half measure.
The fact that 2 cars of 4 have been found illegal is unprecedented but not impossible.
By the time those checks have been made, cars have already been disassembled, if not on trucks, and heading to Mexico.
In order to check every single part of every single car, every single race would require FIA to have much more staff that they have currently on every weekend throughout the season. It would require more downtime from already extremely overworked and busy pitcrews to wait for all these checks to be made. Given how hectic their schedules are (especially in double and tipple headers), this kind of thorough search is pretty much impossible.
These checks are made, how they are, for a good reason, and they do their job by the virtue of them being random (in this case not really random, top 4 cars + random cars that were sparking the most). You don’t wanna risk it as if you are found guilty, you are DSQ’d
And yet there are multiple DQ’s because teams risked it. Did you even think before you typed that?
If you can’t bother enforcing a rule then the rule doesn’t exist.
It’s clear you didn’t read my comment either.
Enforcing this rule fully, the way you imagine is practically impossible. But the rule is necessary to stop excessive porpoising.
Calm down.
