Debate Result | Hamilton not bothered and the FIA should make this change

In our reaction to the United States Grand Prix, GPblog asked our community two questions: is Hamilton even bothered about his disqualification, and should the FIA have checked more cars, given the 50% failure rate?

Hamilton's disqualification

The GPblog community were split on whether Hamilton is bothered by the disqualification. 50.3% of votes said he wasn't bothered, and 49.7% said he is bothered by the disqualification. Remarkably, just one vote swung the outcome.

Mercedes arrived at the Circuit of the Americas with upgrades. Hamilton almost immediately said he could feel the rear of the car as more downforce had been applied. Something Hamilton has wanted for a long time. There's an old adage in sport, often used around pre-season in football or rugby. What's more important? The performance or the result?

The counterbalance is Hamilton lost significant ground on Sergio Perez in the fight for P2 in the World Championship. Coupled with his DNF from the Qatar Grand Prix, Perez now has a 39-point lead. The British driver is probably now relying on a couple of race wins and/or a Perez DNF to overtake him in the championship, given there are just four races and one sprint left.

The FIA should make this change

The GPblog community were more in agreement with our second debate question. Given the disqualifications to Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, should the FIA have checked more cars? They only checked four cars following the race, giving a 50% failure rate.

Just 13% believed that the FIA shouldn't check more cars, whilst 87% of the GPblog audience believed that more cars should've been checked. We split the vote further. 1% of voters thought the additional checks should've stopped at the podium finishers, including those who moved up to the podium due to the DSQs.

26% of the voters believe all point scorers should've been checked. But the majority of voters (60%) said that all cars should've been checked with a 50% failure rate on the sample pool.

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