Both Mercedes running illegal low tire pressures and admit that they knew about it during the race. Should they be allowed to keep the win?
There's a rule, or limit or whatever and a team needs to adhere to it. As Lewis has just said himself, they'll run everything to the bare minimum required to gain the best advantage. I think it's a bit of a coincidence that both Mercedes cars were running low on the same tyre, and as Martin Brundle said, it is the particular tyre where low pressure would give an advantage due to the nature of the track. Unsure as to why only 4 cars were checked pre race. Always seems to be in the favour of Ferrari. Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
They only check a small sample at every race because there isn't time to run down the grid checking them all. That's why it was 4 cars next to each other on the grid that were checked. It's also not strictly true that only one tyre was under pressure, its more a case that they only check one tyre(again due to time) and an assumption is made that if that tyre is over or under pressure then they all will be (they deliberately check the important tyre which martin alluded to). Both tyres checked on Mercedes cars were found to be under pressure so it isn't a case of 1 in 4 on each car it was 100% of tyres on each car.
I think its more a case of the rule needs to be clarified The tyre pressure of any car changes depending on the temperature of the tyre - quite significantly in fact. I don't doubt that at the time the tyre pressures were set with tyres in their heated blankets the pressure was legal The tyre then cools down when the car is standing on the grid and the pressure will drop once the car does its warm up lap the tyre will heat up and be at a higher pressure again The question is does the rule clearly state the conditions when the pressue can be at a minimum - the pressure of the tyre on a cold day on a stationary car isnt really very interesting from a view point of why the rule was introduced. The stewards obviously thought there wasnt a clear evidence of rule breaking but I hope the rule is clarified - there should be a temperature and pressure specification - ie at a particular temp the min tyre pressue should be ... Did I think Mercedes should keep the win - in this case I agree with the Stewards yes I think they should. In any case its hard to argue for a complete disqualification over such a small discrepancy and even with a 25 second time penalty Hamilton still would have won
