F1 News

British media react to United States GP Hamilton disqualification

This is how the British media reacted to Hamilton's disqualification

23 October 2023 at 09:30

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had a sniff of a Grand Prix victory in the United States but ran out of laps in their pursuit of Max Verstappen. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as Hamilton was subsequently disqualified from the race because his car failed the floor test. This is how the British media reported on the news.

DailyMail 

Rarely does a sports story move into 'pole position' on the DailyMail's news website. It usually means a British person has won a World Championship or the national team in one of the more popular sports are finding success or having dramatic failure. It's even rarer to see a sports story remain as the first article on the website almost 12 hours after the event, especially considering what's currently happening around the world.

But Hamilton seems to have rewritten those rules as the news of his disqualification went into pole position and remained there until mid-morning at least. Perhaps a smaller picture of Prince Harry seemingly sharing a joke with Red Bull boss Christian Horner helps the cause. The newspaper liked to point out that the FIA made the decision late with the headline reading: "Controversy as seven-time world champion is stripped of second place finish nearly FOUR HOURS after losing to Max Verstappen".

"Amongst those watching in the stunned crowd was Prince Harry, who was seen laughing and having animated chats with Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner," they reported on their website. They later highlighted that a previous example of the same penalty once helped a Brit: "it's not the first time racing stars have suffered such a fate. Michael Schumacher was disqualified from the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix for the same offence, meaning Damon Hill took the win".

BBC Sport

BBC Sport suggests the incident means it's "difficult to draw conclusions" from the United States Grand Prix and the upgrades that Mercedes introduced. "Mercedes' inadvertent transgression confuses the picture of a race in which the team seemed to have made a step forward with an upgraded car. Their subsequent disqualification rendered those considerations rather moot, although the team were still convinced they had made a step forward with the car."

Sky Sports F1 (UK branch)

Sky Sports went off-air before the decision was made to disqualify Hamilton. Therefore a full explanation of what happened is on their website. They then pointed out the ramifications of the DSQ. "The disqualification is a major blow to Hamilton's hopes of chasing down Verstappen's Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez for second in the drivers' standings. The Mexican was promoted to from fifth to fourth, and instead of only leading Hamilton by 19 points going into the final four rounds of the season, has a 39-point advantage."

The Mirror

The British tabloid suggested it causes bigger problems. "It raises a concern about the fairness of the sport. A variety of cars were checked in lots of different ways after the Grand Prix, as is normal procedure. But FIA documents show a "physical floor and a plank wear inspection" was only carried out on four of them. That means there were 13 more cars which all finished the race but which did not go through the same inspection. And, given the 50 percent fail rate among the admittedly small sample size of four, that is a concern," the paper wrote.

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