After the US GP, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified because their floorboards under the car were too worn. Three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen is pushing for a rule change that should avoid such problems in the future.
Last year the US GP was a race weekend with a sprint race, so there was only one practice session on Friday at the Circuit of The Americas, followed by qualifying. Little time to prepare and set up their cars for the rest of the race weekend and a change in wind direction during the weekend caused the underbody under Hamilton and Leclerc’s F1 cars to become excessively worn.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified, but remarkably the checks were not subsequently extended to other cars. The problem with the wear of the floorboard could be attributed to a combination of factors, but what was particularly problematic is that the cars entered parc ferm conditions immediately after qualifying on Friday and therefore nothing could be adjusted to prevent any possible to solve the problem.
According to Max Verstappen, the rules must be adjusted to avoid problems such as in Austin.
“If you make a slight mistake during the first practice session, you will be stuck with that setting for the rest of the sprint weekend. That really sucks,” said Verstappen to ‘Auto Motor und Sport’.
“We had some very nice sprint weekends last season, but I was not completely satisfied. Take the ride height in Austin for example. Mercedes and Ferrari did not deliberately set their cars too low.”
“But once you get it wrong in terms of adjustment, there is no way to correct it. At best you can try to force something with the tire pressure. However, if the imposed tire pressure is very high, you will be seen.”
Verstappen proposes to adjust the parc ferm rules so that problems such as in Austin last year can be avoided.
“A parc ferm for Saturday and a parc ferm for Sunday, for example,” suggests Verstappen, who makes it clear that he is not in favor of qualifying with just one fast lap: “That would be a bit too risky. I think the current format is very good.”