Charles Leclerc handled the Austin DSQ appropriately while Lewis Hamilton trying to save face claims Danica Patrick
Danica Patrick feels Lewis Hamilton's comments after the DSQ in Austin have been an attempt of him trying to save face, while Charles Leclerc handled the same situation appropriately. The Sky F1 pundit made this statement during the broadcast as the panel was discussing the impact of the lower ride height on car performance.
Since the disqualification, Hamilton has made multiple statements and even passed a few claims about the legality of the rival's cars. He even claimed that according to his sources, there were multiple cars that were going to fail scrutineering if it had happened. On the other hand, Charles Leclerc has been a bit more docile on this matter, accepting the penalty without much of a reaction.
Hamilton had also claimed that the margin by which the car was lowered was minuscule and would not have had much of an impact on car performance. This claim was refuted by Patrick, who added that the Mercedes driver was trying to save face, compared to Ferrari driver who had a more appropriate reaction to the penalty. She said:
“I think Charles probably handled it appropriately because there’s nothing you can really do about making a change at this point in time. You were illegal and you’re out of the race. It felt like Lewis was trying to sort of build a case and save a little bit of face in it. But at the end of the day, he said it doesn’t make a difference, but it does."
She added:
“That’s why the rule is in place because lowering the car generally always makes it faster. It’s one of the most powerful tools to giving the car more grip so I think it does make a difference. And maybe it was a little bit to do with the weekend. There was only one practice session and a lot of parc ferme so they weren’t able to change the car and maybe they gambled, maybe they didn’t know. I’m not sure there were.”
Brundle disagreed with Lewis Hamilton's claims as well
Martin Brundle also disagreed with Lewis Hamilton's claim that there was no performance advantage gained from how low the Mercedes car was. Talking about the fact that these ground effect cars tend to generate more downforce the lower they are, he said:
“I see it differently to Lewis, I must say, in that, we know with this current generation of cars that started in 2022, closer to the ground means quite a bit more performance. I would also like to say I think the FIA do a tremendous job of policing the technical aspects of Formula One."
He added:
"And there are reasons we understand why they chose those two cars in the beginning to check because of data they’d seen. Then they checked some others. I can’t help but think because the teams take the planks off – they’re not made of wood, they’re made of resin, reinforced resin – but take them off and they could impound them, measure them.".
Lewis Hamilton ended P2 in the race in Austin, so the DNF was certainly a big blow. It is hard to determine whether the pace that the car showed was simply down to how low it was being run.