Chandhok suggests FIA should have made exception after Hamilton, Leclerc DSQs

Hamilton and Leclerc were excluded from the race results in Austin after the FIA found that their skid blocks had worn excessively. 

They were just two of four cars checked after the race, with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris’ cars passing the post-race checks.

Chandhok - who is a regular pundit for Sky Sports F1 in the UK - felt that Hamilton and Leclerc were unfortunate to be targeted by the FIA given that their teammate’s weren’t.

“If you find two cars that are illegal, you should automatically check their team-mates because there’s a good chance that they have very similar setups, so I think that’s something that’s worth thinking about for the future,” Chandhok said during the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend."

The former HRT driver would have been happy for the FIA to assess the entire grid - as one-off exception - even if it meant waiting for the final result until the following day.

“Every time you do a plank check, it takes half an hour,” he added. “So, if you have to check all 20 cars, that’s five hours, then the results have to be checked by the stewards, then eventually the results will come out.

“So, there’s a question of do we want a situation where the results are declared seven hours after the grand prix. 

“We don’t want that on every occasion, but what happened in Austin hasn’t happened in 29 years so actually on that occasion, I think it warranted it, and I wouldn’t have minded waiting till Monday for the official results if I knew that all 20 cars were checked.”