© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
After Lewis Hamilton got disqualified from the United States Grand Prix, Max Verstappen says “if you check one car, and it is illegal, you should check the other one as well”.
Lewis Hamilton finished the United States Grand Prix in P2, however he was later disqualified from the race because his car failed the post-race inspection.
The cause was excessive wear on his car’s floor plank, the same issue that was also found on Charles Leclerc’s car, who was also disqualified.
This caused many fans and observers, and even some pundits, to question the FIA’s decision-making process, especially the fact that they didn’t check all of the cars for wear, after two of the four they inspected were found to be illegal.
Ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix, Max Verstappen said that if one car from a certain team has been found to be illegal, the other car should have been checked too.
“Of course nobody tries to do it on purpose, but because of the Sprint format, you only have one practice session to nail everything,” the Dutch driver said.
“Once you are in the wrong [with set-up], there’s nothing you can do, the only thing you can [do] is bump on the tyre pressure – but then you’re driving around on balloon tyres.
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“It is not what you want to see for them, but also as a team, we know that dropping the car gives you that performance, but it is because of the whole format that you put yourself in that position because normally, I don’t think anyone would in a normal weekend.
“The problem is that it is just impossible to check everything but the thought process from every team is that no-one wants to be illegal, no-one sets the car up to be illegal.
“With the random checks that get carried out, I mean sometimes it is the top four, sometimes it is in the middle of the field, that is just how it goes.
“You can’t check every car for every single part, otherwise we need 100 more people to do these kind of things, but I think the only thing is that if you check one car, and it is illegal, you should check the other one as well.
“That is for me the only thing, because otherwise, you disqualify one, then the other moves up a position as normally you always run quite similar set-ups,” Verstappen concluded.
