© Sebastian Kawka for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
Toto Wolff says he’d “take the disqualification running for a race win” over “running P3 and ending 25 seconds adrift”, “every day of the week”.
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.
Ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says he’d take the same risks again.
“I would take the same thing and I would also take the disqualification because we got it wrong,” the Austrian told Sky Sports F1.
“I take the disqualification running for a race win and see the performance, against running P3 and ending 25 seconds adrift.
“Every day of the week I would go for the disqualification.”
Wolff explained the added downforce gained by the new floor introduced in Austin, contributed to excessive floor plan wear.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“No, the problem with the sprint race is the car goes into parc ferme, you can’t adjust it anymore and we thought on Saturday that could be on the limit but probably with a bit of a margin.
“We had a new floor, we’ve got more downforce, probably also in the sprint we didn’t run as much without DRS which smashed the floor more. The stars weren’t aligned.”
On Thursday, Lewis Hamilton said he learned that more cars would have been disqualified had the FIA performed a more extensive check, and Toto confirms that to be the case.
“That’s the feedback we’ve got from the other teams. They’re chatting to each other. Also on a management level.
“I think many, many teams were under the nine mil [millimetre],” Wolff concluded.
