Sir Lewis Hamilton had barely finished celebrating his first victory with his new team on Saturday, when things turned sour the very next day. The Ferrari driver as well as his team mate, Charles Leclerc were both disqualified from Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai. More interesting is that both drivers were disqualified for two entirely different reasons. However, the disqualifications stemmed from breaking some rules of the sport.
Leclerc’s Disqualification
Formula 1 (F1) is a very strict sport, especially when it comes to the weight of their race cars. This is quite understandable, as a ‘0.1kg’ difference in weight can give a driver undue advantage over the rest of the pack. For Charles Leclerc, this was his case, because his car weighed 1 kg under the 800 kg car weight limit. To put things into perspective, think about a litre of coke which is equivalent to 1 kg. So, we can as well say that Leclerc was disqualified for taking out his bottle of coke, assuming all drivers had one on them during the race. Shouldn’t make a difference right? But not in Formula 1.
Hamilton’s Disqualification
On the other hand, Sir Lewis Hamilton was disqualified because his plank underneath the car had excessive wear by half a millimetre. Under every formula one car is a ‘plank’ also known as a skid block. This plank or skid block is a mandatory fixture designed to ensure minimum ground clearance and regulate ride height. Once again, everything is tightly regulated in F1. A vehicle with a lower ground clearance would perform better, so the plank ensures all race cars have the same ride height.
Now, back to the reason for Hamilton’s disqualification. Half a millimetre is equivalent to the tip of a lead pencil. That’s how tiny the margin of error was for Hamilton’s disqualification. Ferrari made no fuss and have taken full responsibility for both disqualifications, acknowledging that these were genuine errors from the team. Unfortunately, this sets back the 7th time world champion as his 6th place finish during the Sunday race is null and void.
Overall, it is quite sad that both Ferrari drivers had to be disqualified for errors that were seemingly inconsequential. We can only hope that Ferrari learns from this mistake and that it doesn’t repeat itself. What are your thoughts on the disqualifications? Were you aware of these Formula 1 rules?
