Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes ’embarrassed’ by United States GP disqualification, says James Allison

Mercedes technical director James Allison says the team was “embarrassed” by Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification from the United States Grand Prix for breaching technical regulations.

Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc were excluded from second and sixth places respectively four hours after the end of Sunday’s dramatic race after wear on the planks under their cars was found to have exceeded the limits of F1 regulations.

The seven-time world champion’s disqualification means that instead of moving to within 19 points of Red Bull’s Sergio Perez for second place in the drivers’ standings, his gap grew to 39 points with just four rounds of the season remaining.

Allison said in Mercedes’ post-race debrief: “Of course the disqualification is a big blow. It’s a miserable feeling. It hurts and everyone here feels it.

“Everyone is angry and to some extent also embarrassed, because we absolutely don’t like being on the wrong side of the rules and just lamenting the points lost.”

After Mercedes brought a final major upgrade of the season to the W14, Hamilton produced a hugely impressive weekend as he narrowly lost out to world champion Max Verstappen’s other Red Bull for victory.

Allison said the progress in performance will help the team overcome the disappointment of the disqualification.

He added: “Give it a day or two and that will start to fade and be replaced by the much happier feeling which is that we moved our car forward this weekend and it’s hard to do that .

“But we did it and it turned out pretty well. And with four races to go in the championship, four races that I’m pretty sure we’ll stay on the right side of the skidblock rules.

“The initial feeling of pain, disappointment and frustration of ourselves will pass and be replaced by the sunny optimism of knowing that the car looked good with this upgrade package and that we have four more races to show what we can do with it. “

‘We made a mistake’

Allison also gave a detailed explanation of how Mercedes fell foul of the rules, accepting that the team had made “a mistake” by not leaving enough margin.

“The disqualification had everything to do with the setup and the bumpiness of the track, compounded by the fact that it was a sprint weekend,” he said.

“During a sprint weekend you are under a lot more pressure, you just have a lonely hour at the very front of the weekend.

“After that one hour you’ve basically rolled your dice, you’ve chosen your lineup and then you have to run the rest of the weekend with the bets you placed in that one hour of running. That means much, much less time to judge things than normal and much less time to take corrective action prior to the remaining sessions later in the weekend.

“Austin is a track with a very bumpy surface and therefore you are a bit more vulnerable to the car hitting the ground. We simply had not taken enough margin at the end of the first free practice.

“When we did our setup, we checked the plank and everything, everything looked good, really untouched after the FP1 race. But the results of the race speak for themselves. We were illegal at the end of the race, so It was clear that we should have set our car a little higher to give ourselves a little more margin.

“It’s obviously a mistake, it’s an understandable kind of mistake on a sprint weekend where it’s so much harder to get those things right, especially on a bumpy track. But a lesson for us in the future to ensure that we take more margin. , especially on such a track with all its bumps.”

How Hamilton’s strategy gamble fell ‘crushingly’ short

The pain of disqualification could have been even more extreme for Mercedes had Hamilton ended the almost two-year wait for his 104th F1 victory, which almost happened.

The Briton quickly closed in on Verstappen in the closing laps of the race, but could have already been in front of the Red Bull if not for a poor strategic decision from Mercedes.

With Hamilton finishing second behind Lando Norris and ahead of Verstappen, Mercedes opted not to react to Red Bull bringing in the Dutchman, opting to try and implement a one-stop strategy as opposed to the two-stopper where the other contenders had committed themselves to.

A few laps later, Hamilton’s tires failed, meaning he lost track position to Verstappen and subsequently had to fall back on a less optimal version of the two-stop strategy.

Their respective paces for the remainder of the race, with both comfortably faster than Norris’s McLaren, suggested Hamilton would have had an excellent chance of victory had Mercedes responded immediately to Red Bull’s stops.

Allison explained that Verstappen’s dominant performance in Saturday’s sprint had convinced Mercedes that Hamilton would not have the pace to beat him with the same strategy.

“We should have pitted Lewis, we should have stayed in front and we would have given ourselves a better chance of winning if we had done that,” Allison said. ‘But it’s good to understand where we’re coming from, and also to understand a little more about the strategists’ dilemma.

“We knew that we had been quite fast in the sprint race the day before, but we also knew that Max was just ahead of us.

“Austin is the kind of track where the track generally tends to put the cars out in pace order by the time the checkered flag drops late Sunday, so we didn’t actually think we were in exactly the same race. like Max.”

Given that belief, Mercedes believed their best chance of victory was to adopt an alternative strategy, and they believed a one-stop was possible as Hamilton maintained a strong pace until late in his first stint.

“We left Lewis there and waited to see what would happen, hoping the flat lap time progression would continue,” said Allison. “A lap went by and we were basically undercut and then we crossed our fingers to see if the pace developed as we had hoped.

But, rather crushingly, within a very short period of time after we lost the ability to protect ourselves from Max, after a long period of flat lap times with Lewis, his lap times turned south in our direction and we experienced the same degradation as all others, who turned us into a two-stop car along with everyone else, but who initially handed the position over to Max as a result of that false optimism that we could make this one-stop work.

“While we certainly would have been better off covering him because the speed of the car was actually good enough to compete with him on an equal footing and if we had just done a two-stop against his two-stopper, that would have could also be like that.” another race.”

When can you only watch the Mexico City GP live on Sky Sports F1?

Thursday October 26
9 p.m.: Drivers’ press conference

Friday October 27
7 p.m.: Mexico City GP, practice one
8:45 PM: The F1 show
10:45 PM: GP of Mexico City, practice two (also on Sky Sports Main Event)

Saturday October 28
6.15 pm: GP practice three of Mexico City
9 p.m.: Mexico City GP qualifying build-up (also on Sky Sports Main Event)
10 p.m.: Mexico City GP qualifying (also on Sky Sports Main Event)

Sunday October 29
6:30 PM: Grand Prix Sunday Mexico City GP build-up (also on Sky Sports Main Event)
8 p.m.: The GRAND PRIZE OF MEXICO CITY (also on Sky Sports Main Event)
10 p.m.: Checkered flag: Mexico City GP

F1 heads straight to Mexico for the middle leg of the US triple header. Watch the entire Mexico City Grand Prix weekend live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday, with Sunday’s race at 8pm. Stream F1 on Sky Sports with NOW