Ferrari made a statement after hearing that their drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, were disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday.
Leclerc’s car was disqualified first because it was found to be 1kg under the minimum weight. This happened even after his car was weighed with a replacement front wing. Leclerc had damaged his original wing on the first lap and finished the race without an endplate. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was also disqualified for the same reason.
Later, Hamilton’s car was checked, and it was found that his rearward skid was thinner than the allowed limit, leading to his disqualification. Originally, Leclerc finished in fifth place and Hamilton in sixth.
Ferrari explained, “Car 16 was underweight by 1kg, and Car 44’s rearward skid was 0.5mm too thin.” They mentioned that Leclerc’s one-stop strategy caused his tires to wear out more, making the car too light. Most teams followed a two-stop strategy because that was Pirelli’s prediction. However, tire wear was lower than expected, so many cars, including Leclerc’s, stopped only once.
Situations like this have happened before. For example, George Russell was disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix last season because his car was underweight after a one-stop strategy.
Ferrari also spoke about Hamilton’s disqualification, saying they made a small mistake in judging the skid wear. They said there was no intention to cheat and promised to learn from the mistake.
The disqualification cost Leclerc 10 points and Hamilton 8 points. Ferrari lost a total of 18 points. These points could be very important this year because the competition between Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes is close. Even though Ferrari earned 12 points in the Saturday Sprint in Shanghai, they are now 61 points behind McLaren and 40 points behind Mercedes in the Teams’ Championship.
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