Lewis Hamilton Disqualified from 2021 Brazilian Qualifying

Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from 2021 Friday qualifying and he is set to start from back of the grid for the F1 Sprint after a technical infringement was found on his Mercedes W12.

This means Max Verstappen will head the field for Saturday’s 100km dash event in Brazil with Valtteri Bottas starting from P2.

Stewards Decision explained

Ahead of the Sprint event the stewards explained why they had handed the penalty to Hamilton: “In lay terms, there is a gap between the upper and lower parts of the rear wing. When the DRS is not activated this gap must be between 10mm and 15mm. The car passed this part of the test.

“When DRS is activated, which raises the upper element of the wing to a flatter position, the gap must be between 10mm and 85mm. The maximum gap is measured, in accordance with TD/011-19, by pushing an 85mm gauge against the gap with a maximum load of 10N (ten newtons.) If the gauge goes through then the car has failed the test.

“In this case, the gauge would not pass through at the inner section of the wing, but did at the outer section of the wing. This test was repeated four times with two different gauges, once being done in the presence of the Stewards and representatives of the Competitor.”