No regrets for Wolff after Austin: Merc ‘would do the same again’ despite DSQ
Hamilton lost his P2 at the Circuit of the Americas after the FIA found that the plank underneath his car had suffered excessive wear.
The seven-time world champion wasn’t the only driver excluded, with Charles Leclerc also disqualified from the final results.
Speaking to Sky Sports during the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, Wolff made it clear that Mercedes ‘would do the same again’.
“I would take the same thing and I would also take the disqualification because we got it wrong,” he said. “I take the disqualification running for a race win and see the performance against running P3 and ending 25 seconds adrift.
“Every day of the week I would go for the disqualification.”
Wolff revealed that Mercedes’ new floor upgrade contributed to the excessive wear to the plank due to the additional downforce.
“No, the problem with the sprint race is the car goes into parc ferme, you can’t adjust it anymore and we thought on Saturday that could be on the limit but probably with a bit of a margin.
We had a new floor, we’ve got more downforce, probably also in the sprint we didn’t run as much without DRS which smashed the floor more,” he explained. “The stars weren’t aligned.”
The Austrian backed Hamilton’s claim that multiple teams would have been disqualified had the FIA checked their cars.
The FIA only looked at Hamilton, Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris’ cars after the race on Sunday.
“That’s the feedback we’ve got from the other teams,” he added. “They’re chatting to each other. Also on a management level. I think many, many teams were under the nine mil [millimetre].”
