Out of the four cars that were randomly checked by the FIA scrutineers at the end of the United States Grand Prix, both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were found to have excessive wear on the planks underneath their cars.
The planks are a safety feature introduced after the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, and 1mm of wear is allowed from a 10mm block.
The disqualifications of Hamilton and Leclerc posed a question, what about George Russell and Carlos Sainz? Both sister cars are identical, and as the image below shows, both Russell and Sainz also had a low ride height, creating sparks.
But their cars were not selected for further inspection, despite their team-mates being found in breach of the technical regulations.
Owing to the sheer number of components on every car, it is impossible for the FIA's technical inspection team to strip down every car after every race to check its legalities, which is why the team led by Jo Bauer conduct random checks to ensure cars are legal.
But should more action be taken if half of the cars are found to be illegal during the random spot check?
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