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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has declared that he would always accept one of his cars getting disqualified rather than finishing miles away from a race win. This was a response to the recent disqualification of Lewis Hamilton from the 2023 F1 US GP due to excessive plank wear.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Toto Wolff initially explained how, after the sprint race, the car goes into parc ferme, which means that teams are not allowed to tinker with most of the aspects of the car. Hence, they were unable to adjust the ride height to save themselves from disqualification.
However, the Mercedes team boss made it clear that he would take a disqualification as long as the car looked extremely strong and was going for a race win. He would not accept one of his drivers not getting disqualified but only finishing third and several seconds behind the race winner.
The Austrian billionaire concluded:
"The problem with the Sprint races is your car goes into parc ferme and you can't adjust it anymore. Going into Saturday we thought, 'Hmm, that could be on the limit but probably with a little bit of a margin'. I would take the disqualification running for a race win and seeing the performance, rather than ending P3 and 25 seconds adrift. Every day of the week I would take the disqualification."
This statement from the Mercedes team principal shows how badly he and the team want to win races again and bounce back to the top of the table. Their eyes are fully focused on 2024, where they are planning to fight hard with Red Bull and Max Verstappen once again.
Mercedes star on his chase for second place in the F1 drivers' championship
Lewis Hamilton is currently chasing Sergio Perez in the drivers' championship table for second place. They are only 39 points apart, and the battle for the second place will heat up as the season comes to an end.
However, the seven-time world champion is not too concerned about it and feels it is slightly difficult to achieve. When asked by Sportskeeda about it in the pre-race press conference ahead of the Mexican GP, he said:
“I think it's unlikely, but we’ll give it our best shot. At the end of the day, either way, it doesn’t make any difference whether we are second or third. It’s not for us to accomplish that.
"Getting the team second is more of a goal, I think that is the goal. But I think we were on a good trajectory. But obviously for us, there are only four races and Checo has to have four really bad races which is unlikely.”
As he admitted, Lewis Hamilton is more focused on pushing Mercedes forward and securing second place in the constructors' championship than fighting for second place in the drivers' championship table.
