Sao Paulo Grand Prix witnessed a lot of fuss around the Mercedes W-12 of Lewis Hamilton. The rear wing of W-12 has been in news on different occasions this year including last weekend itself. Hamilton was disqualified in qualifying at Interlagos after his car failed the rear wing inspection.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff finally revealed the reason behind this, he said that two screws were undone which caused the irregularity in the rear wing. However, he claims that the rear wing failed the test by a negligible margin of 0.2mm.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff reveals what caused the error on the car of Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes team received the rear wing back from the FIA before the Qatar Grand Prix. It was under inspection because it was suspected to cross the maximum limit of 85mm when DRS is enabled. The Austrian reiterated that there was nothing suspective about the rear wing.
“We got the rear wing back. And as we thought it was broken, it broke in qualifying, we didn’t pass the 85mm slot gap test on the far right side, we passed it on the left, in the middle, but not on the right, by a fraction of a millimetre. And that’s fine.”
Toto Wolff say that @MercedesAMGF1 received the contentious Hamilton Interlagos rear wing back from the FIA and confirmed that “two screws became undone in qualifying and caused that side to be irregular.”
— Adam Cooper (@adamcooperF1) November 19, 2021
“We weren’t allowed to inspect it, nor to make the argument that the part is being broken. And consequently, we found out that two screws became undone in qualifying. And that caused that right side to be irregular.” he added.
However, he is glad that they were finally able to make a turnaround with Hamilton coming out as the Grand Prix winner. Nevertheless, Wolff says the team has “moved on” and they are looking forward to the next race.
Horner is ready to protest the rear wing
Red Bull boss Christian Horner said that they will protest the Mercedes rear wing if they believe it’s illegal. “If we believe the car is not in compliance, we will protest. The straight-line speeds that we’ve seen in Mexico and in Brazil, I mean, I think everybody could see Brazil was not a normal situation.” said the Briton in the FIA press conference.
The Mercedes have been ridiculously fast down on the straights and their rear wing suspension, which was in news after Mexico GP, has a huge role to play. “Absolutely. Do we have concerns over the gains in straight-line speed [at Mercedes] that we’ve seen since Budapest? But really, they’ve been exponential in the last couple of races, absolutely,” said the Red Bull boss as reported by Autosport.
