Did Mercedes and Ferrari get lucky? 'Was the other car even legal?'

After the US Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified, but wouldn't it have been more fair to check all the cars? The drivers were asked that question at the press conference in Mexico.

After the US Grand Prix, the cars of Leclerc and Hamilton were disqualified. The board under the floor of the car was too much worn and thus did not meet the FIA's requirements. Remarkably, the FIA investigated only four of the 20 cars, and thus two of the four were declared invalid.

The FIA has since clarified this rule. It was said to be a spot check, as the FIA simply does not have the resources to check all the cars. However, the drivers are of the opinion that something needs to be done about the regulations.

What needs to change after the disqualifications

"I might have been illegal myself," Nico Hulkenberg joked at the press conference ahead of the Mexico GP. "Obviously, these cars are incredibly sensitive to the ride height. The lower you get, the more downforce you get. That's the constant fight we have, and we need to find the right balance."

Pierre Gasly mainly points to the sprint format as the culprit for the problems in Austin. "I think starting with the sprint weekend when we got only one FP1 session on such a track. You're going pretty much blind after FP1 with very little information on where to base yourself. I think it's a tricky thing. Probably, we can improve that process and give us more time to readjust if needed." Still, Gasly also believes that things can be checked differently. "Whenever you finish on the podium, you should be checked every single time. Then on top of that, there could be random checks as well running down the order."

"I do think maybe you don't need to check every car every race all the time,'' Alexander Albon revealed. "If there's one driver in one team illegal, there's a very, very high chance that the other car and the teammate of that driver is going to be illegal as well. I don't know how much it would take to check a couple more cars, but I don't think that would be such an issue."

Whether the FIA will actually make any changes after its own investigation remains to be seen. As stated earlier, it says it does not have the manpower to check all the cars. Albon's point makes sense, though. Indeed, there is a pretty good chance that George Russell and Carlos Sainz might also have been found not to be legal if their cars had been checked, but we will never know.