Hamilton claims more cars were illegal | “Ridiculous" DSQs ‘tainted’ US GP 

Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified from second and sixth place at last weekend’s race in Austin after the floor planks underneath their cars were found to have excessive wear. 

Max Verstappen’s Red Bull and Lando Norris’ McLaren were also looked at as part of the FIA’s post-race checks, but their cars were found to be in conformity. 

However, the fact that half of the cars were illegal proved controversial and prompted suggestions that all of the cars should have been examined, something F1 co-commentator Martin Brundle argued in his post-race column for Sky. 

Speaking ahead of the Mexico City Grand Prix, seven-time world champion Hamilton said he felt that the disqualifications, which came four hours after the chequered flag, “tainted” the event. 

“They only tested a few cars and 50 percent of them got disqualified,” Hamilton told Sky. “There were far more drivers’ cars that were illegal. 

“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. 

“Some cars handle the bumps better than others and we know we’ve had a very stiff and bumpy car for the last two years. But ultimately it failed the regulation and that needs to change. 

“The sport had such an amazing weekend, it was such a great turnout and such a great race. Every time we take steps forward in the sport, something like that really taints it. 

“So hopefully they’ll learn a little bit for the future, rather than checking everybody and over 50 percent of the cars failing, which, I would put all my money on it that they would have. 

“Instead, perhaps on a sprint weekend we should be able to change just the skid, for example, on the Saturday night. So on Sunday you don’t have this ridiculous kind of event afterwards.”

Hamilton also insisted that lowering the ride height does not always have a bearing on performance. 

“It depends where you have the downforce,” he explained. “Some cars you have the downforce very low, some you gain more at high ride heights. 

“For example, last year we were very low and stiff but we were bouncing. This year we generate more downforce at higher ride heights, so we actually go for higher. But there are some where you have low speed corners where sometimes it does perform better when it’s a little bit lower. 

“If you look at our onboard footage of Charles and I, we have the worst ride of everyone, the Ferraris and us. Our heads are bumping around quite a lot. But others are also doing those things. 

“If you look at Max, his head is much smoother through the ride phase so they have much better ride than us.”

He added: “One millimetre was not a performance factor whether we did what we did. It wasn’t like the floor bowing and giving us extra downforce or anything like that. It was just terrible over the kerbs. 

“If we had raised the car by a millimetre, or half a millimetre or whatever it failed by, it wouldn’t have made a difference, except we would have passed the checks. But it is what it is.”