It's en error on their part, for sure. There are some mitigation circumstances, but that doesn't matter when it comes to this.. it's pretty black and white. Question is, what was the benefit they gained? Do we know how much over the 1mm Charlie and Hamilton were?
I'd had this thought too. The FIA haven't upheld a disqualification for plank wear since 1994 as far as I can see? (Trulli got away with it on a technicality in 2001) So when you have 2 in an event, from 4 cars tested, should you not be looking into that further? At the very least check Russell and Sainz.
If wikipedia is accurate (on a random, niche article on F1 planks, perhaps not), Schumacher got disqualified for plank wear at Spa '94, Trulli probably should have been in the USA '01, but got away with it because of an FIA procedural snafu. There's no reports of it since on that article, it's hard to Google now because Hamilton/Leclerc coverage swamps everything.
Yeah, I imagine it's all recent articles about planks if it's been so long. I thought it's been a while but, but no clue it was that long.
Something to do with a weld on the column. It was altered and suggestion was the weld was faulty, think they suggested some air was trapped in the weld. The Italians wanted to take Williams to court over it. That eventually got dropped.
Woo - Plank Chat! Planks were introduced in 1994, I think in part to mitigate the loss of active suspension and the subsequent loss of control over ride height as well as being part of the package of changes to slow cars down by raising the ride height. Although these weren’t ground effect cars, they still derived significant downforce from the underfloor and through the diffuser. One of the characteristics of ground effect is that it’s very peaky in terms of the relationship between floor and ground and in particular if you go too low beyond the optimal point you get a sudden loss of downforce. From that perspective they are a safety device as well as a way to control speeds, I’d imagine that’s still true despite the suspension improvements of the last 30 years. Other than the events people mentioned, I recall there was some fuss about flexible bibs from Mercedes back in 2021, which I believe was associated to avoiding plank wear for high rake cars. We also had last years AOM fuss due which was all about Merc not being able to run their car as low as needed, but presumably wasn’t resulting in anyone wearing the plank despite the impacts.
I thought there was nothing fully conclusive on it I believe this is what the Italian courts found to be at fault, but the team had alternate reasons. I thought it was something to do with the car bottoming out due to low tyre pressure and pushing a bit too hard too early or a possible puncture from the debris from the start line incident. The whole crash is weird though as there does look to be little attempt to slow or turn the car once it takes off towards the gravel. It was bottoming out considerably before the crash. Truth may be that it was multiple factors that contributed.
I remember reading in Murray Walker`s"Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken" book when he wrote about the day he was commentating on that race. He said that it didn`t look like a terribly bad crash and had seen worse where the driver had walked away.Then when the ambulance car with Sid Watkins came to the scene he realised how serious it was.Murray described how he had to keep talking on live TV when he really didn`t know what to say as the helicopter came and flew Senna to hospital But,I must agree with you,the whole crash seems very weird,with little attempt to slow down or turn.The loss of steering control suggests that straight on action. I read later that the front right wheel detached and hit his head and part of a suspension rod pierced his visor. Do you think the halo could have saved him?
It really didn't seem all that bad at the time and I personally fully expected him to unbuckle and climb out. Even with the limited safety features of that time it had been a good number of years since we'd seen a death in a race weekend, and utterly bizarre that two came within a day of each other. Senna could have walked away from that had the debris been sent in a slightly different direction. Roland's was a pretty unsurvivable impact by all accounts sadly. Would a Halo have saved Senna? Who knows. There is still plenty of room for debris to penetrate the cockpit. What a god awful weekend that was. What with Rubens crash, Roland Ratzenberger, the start line smash, and then Senna. The whole damn weekend was cursed.
We have made some pretty incredible safety advances since then, and it would be another 20 years until another fatality in a race. But even with the leaps we have made, it's only a matter of time until there is another tragedy. Sadly it's inevitable, but hopefully a long way away.
For some reason I found myself going back to that weekend and watching everything that played out again, probably just to remind myself how significant that whole time was. Boy it was very lucky that there weren't more deaths. Barrichello was extremely lucky to walk away from that crash. Watching the way his head is thrown about in the cockpit and the sudden deceleration is truly frightening.
Excellent posts ,SgtBhaji. Rubens could have died too,because he had swallowed his tongue and it was only because of swift action by doctors that saved his life It truly was a terrible,dreadful weekend..
Yes it was. I remember the scene as if it was only yesterday. About 140 people die each day on the roads in the UK and US combined. My daughter who lived in Florida some while back saw a fatal accident. She tried desperately to save the driver of one car (passenger already dead). No one helped her even though she screamed for help, everyone just stood and gawped. The driver died two days later.
Apparently, if I’ve read the interview correctly on the BBC Sport website, the skid blocks on Lewis’s car failed by 0.05mm. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/67235024
I assume that was 0.05mm in excess of the tolerance. Unfortunately rules are rules, that said it appears that they only 'applied' this rule to 4 cars which seems a bit unfair. I guess either they didn't want to end up excluding half the grid as they would looks silly (FIA), or the rules dictate that it's just a random few cars that are checked. I am surprised that all cars don't have a certain number of checks to check compliance.
Lewis Hamilton says more cars should be checked after races following his disqualification from the United States Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion lost second place in Austin, Texas because of excessive wear on his car's skid blocks. He believes other cars would have been caught if they had been checked. "What's crazy is they only test four cars, 50% fail," said the 38-year-old Mercedes driver. "And I've had information from many others that were also illegal but they got away with it. That's messed up." Only the cars of Hamilton, race winner Max Verstappen of Red Bull, McLaren's Lando Norris and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc were checked for floor legality in Austin last Sunday. Hamilton and Leclerc were both disqualified for the same technical infringement. A number of different tests were carried out on other cars. Norris said that if one car from a team was illegal in such a manner, then there was a high chance the other one was, too. The floors of Carlos Sainz's Ferrari and George Russell's Mercedes were not checked in Austin. They were promoted to third and fifth places from fourth and seventh by the disqualifications. Norris said: "I would love if they had checked more cars. It can always bite you. They checked mine first. It's more [across] teams. It's unlikely two [cars in one team] are that different. If one car is illegal then there's a high chance the other car is." Hamilton, speaking on media day before this weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix, said that he knew of other situations in his time in F1 where similar things had happened. "There have been many other scenarios like this where some people have got away with certain things and some people have got unlucky and got tested," he said. "There needs to be some form of better structure to make sure it is fair and even across the board." Governing body the FIA has long had a policy of carrying out random checks on cars during a race weekend and after a grand prix. It said in a statement on Thursday that there was not time to check all cars for every possible rule infringement in the time available. The FIA said: "[The process] exists to ensure compliance with the regulations by virtue of the fact that the teams do not know before the race which specific areas of which cars might be examined beyond the standard checks carried out on every car each weekend. "Even though a wide array of checks are made, it is impossible to cover every parameter of every car in the short time available - and this is especially true of back-to-back race weekends when freight deadlines must also be considered." I agreed with the check all cars scenario . From what the FIA said i understand the situation better . I do still think then if one car fails a test the sister car must get treated the same ?
A sample of the points scorers is fine as the default, but there needs to be an allowance for extra time if they find anything. Bare minimum is to check the teammate and if more than one team is DSQ'd they should check the whole grid We regularly have stewards investigations go on all day, just extend scrutineering.
The problem here is that with the tight schedule they can’t hang on to the cars, they need to be on their way to the next event hours after the last one. It does seem stupid that Sainz gets Leclerc’s podium without being checked and I do think that kind of overt issue should be addressed to stop the sport looking openly silly. I’m not sure it’s feasible to go much further though.
