Due to a mechanical issue with his Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix.
After the race, it was discovered that one of Hamilton’s car’s skid blocks was not thick enough.
After their vehicles were found to be underweight in post-race examinations, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and his teammate Charles Leclerc were also disqualified.
After winning the short race in Shanghai on Saturday, his first race for his new team, Hamilton drops out of sixth place in the main grand prix.
The Italian squad maintained there was “no intention to gain any advantage” in a statement.
Ferrari explained the disqualifications by stating that they had “misjudged the consumption by a small margin” with respect to Hamilton’s skid wear and that Leclerc’s weight breach was caused by his high tire wear from his one-stop race plan.
“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again,” said the statement.
Frenchman Gasly finished eleventh, and Monegasque Leclerc came in sixth.
The purpose of the skid blocks on Formula 1 cars’ floors is to keep the vehicle from running too low and to maintain a specific ride height.
For the same reason, the underfloor wooden plank, where the skids are located, has a minimum depth.
One that is overly worn may offer a performance advantage by enabling the vehicle to run at a lower speed than it otherwise could.
A similar problem excluded Hamilton from the 2023 United States Grand Prix while he was racing for Mercedes.
