Lewis Hamilton Says There Were More Illegal Formula 1 Cars At The USGP, But They Weren't Checked

After Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified from the 2023 United States Grand Prix over excessive plank wear, the Formula 1 world has been embroiled in a fierce debate about rules and regulations. Now, during a press conference ahead of the Mexico Grand Prix, Hamilton has fired back: He claims there were far more F1 cars bearing excessive plank wear at the USGP, but those cars simply weren’t tested.

Let’s rewind a little bit. The underside Formula 1 cars are all equipped with a 10-millimeter thick glass-reinforced plastic plank. This plank monitors ride height; if an F1 car is bottoming out on the track, the plank will wear away. If that plank is worn away by even a smidge more than the regulations allow, race officials can disqualify a driver. These planks were mandated after Ayrton Senna’s fatal crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, where the excessive bottoming out of his car resulted in Senna losing control and crashing on a high speed corner.

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Hamilton isn’t necessarily incorrect; motorsport in general is a game of minutiae. If race stewards scrutinized every single car using every page of the FIA rulebook, then there’s a good chance those F1 cars would still be sitting in parc fermé in Austin, being poked and prodded until the end of time. Due to the compact nature of the schedule — teams packed up their supplies in Austin on Sunday night in order to fly to Mexico City the very next day — there simply isn’t time to check every car. A selection are chosen and scrutinized; the cars that aren’t chosen will simply be packed up.

Hamilton is also correct in stating that the enforcement of regulations should be improved. If half of the tested cars exhibit irregularities, then there’s a very good chance that a good portion of the USGP’s 11 other finishers likely also exhibited irregularities — especially the sister cars of Hamilton and Leclerc.