28 October 2023 , 19:31
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Sky Sports F1 pundit Danica Patrick called out Lewis Hamilton for his public reaction to disqualification after last weekend's United States Grand Prix.
Hamilton finished the Austin race second but was later disqualified after FIA checks found his car did not comply with Formula 1 rules. Charles Leclerc also had his result taken away when a similar issue was found on his Ferrari.
Both cars had too much wear on the skid blocks underneath their cars. The rule is in place to stop teams running their cars too close to the ground and, on this occasion, both Mercedes and Ferrari got their calculations wrong.
Silver Arrows boss Toto Wolff admitted straight after the disqualification that his team was wholly to blame. And Leclerc also accepted the disappointing outcome without much comment and was eager to move on.
But Hamilton wasn't willing to let the subject die down without getting his point across. "The skid is not a performance element. Of course, if you have a flat surface everyone is going to be pushing their car to be as low as possible," he said ahead of this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix.
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"But it's mostly some cars handle the bumps better than others and you know we have had a very stiff and bumpy car for the last two years. But ultimately it failed the regulation and that needs to change."
Those words did not go down too well with Sky F1's Patrick. Referring to Hamilton's comments, the IndyCar race-winner questioned the seven-time F1 world champion's intentions and suggested he should have taken a similar path to Leclerc on this topic.
"I think Charles probably handled it appropriately, because there's nothing you can really do about making a change at this point in time," she said. "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. 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 give 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."