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McLaren DQs Explained

McLaren DQs Explained

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi Nov 25, 2025 24 min
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About this episode

The hosts dive into the recent disqualification of both McLaren drivers at the Vegas Grand Prix due to their cars' skid plank wear being below the legal limit. They break down what a skid plank is, why it matters, and how small the margin was—less than the width of a human hair. The discussion explores the challenges McLaren faced with limited practice data, the strategic decisions made, and the impact on the championship battle with Max Verstappen now within striking distance. They also debate McLaren's 'let them race' philosophy and the potential team dynamics moving forward.

Topics: mclaren disqualification skid plank rules ride height strategy vegas grand prix formula 1 regulations championship implications team strategy max verstappen mclaren drivers race weekend challenges
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This is off track.
My mom's in town visiting.
Tell her we say hello right now. How are you guys
Doing Right now?
No, Tell her. Oh my God.
Don't make me like text your mom to say hello. Okay. And that
They say hello.
You don't have her number. She doesn't have your number.
You don't want her to have your number.
You don't know that Alex does.
You don't want her to have that.
I would love to have Joan's number. To
Be fair, Larry uses my number more than Joan.
So there was a, so there was a race , Uh, family time.
Um, there was a race, but we're not gonna talk about the race because that's what Thursdays are for.
This is Tuesday. So we have an interview with the one
and only James Hinchcliffe.
Rules. I was like, wait, what? Rules Analyst? Uh, no.
So there was some big news that, uh, that came out after the race.
Um, huge news. Big, big news, big implications. Wow.
Large, large. And in charge news
that both the McLaren drivers were disqualified, which in and of itself is big news.
They finished second and fourth.
Um, but the fact that Max won, and when you look at the championship, that now puts max less than a race win out of the lead with two races plus a sprint to go, which is insanity and hilarious and awesome.
I want it to be known. Alex already pointed this out. Yes.
I'm technically wearing a Red Bull, uh, hoodie right now.
Hmm. That was purely coincidence.
It was at the top of my sweatshirt pile when I got dressed this morning.
And so I just grabbed it and I did not really appreciate that.
We were gonna be recording this today and talking on this for discussion, but this, On that, did you, did you spend good, hard-earned American dollars yourself on buying a Red Bull F1 hoodie? It
Was given.
I did not. Uh, yes. It was given to me
and it was given to me year one.
It is actually a Vegas special edition, coincidentally Enough .
Right, right, right. No, I was just curious.
Like, have you ever purchased motorsport?
Not for myself. Right.
Oh, like motor in for any motorsport. Yeah.
I bought this hat Hmm. At a hard card wielding discount,
but still, I bought a decent amount of stuff from the IMS store.
Okay. Stuff is super you that you,
you've worn yourself and not Yeah.
Given as a gift. Okay. All
Yeah. Several hats.
It'll probably shock you to know that I have not, it does not. Yeah.
Big shock. Huge shock. Right, right. Massive shock.
Look at, look at the shock. Look on my face.
Anyway, the penalty. The penalty.
There's been so much discussion online about it.
And so, uh, as two non-engineers, we figured we we're the perfect people to break down exactly what happened. And why
Don't forget I'm here.
Well, you're the, you're gonna be leading the discussion.
We're just gonna answer questions.
Go ahead. Yeah. I'll answer your guys questions
on the belly and, and Everything.
Right. All right. So Alex, the, the skid was too thin.
What does that mean?
The floor? Where's The skid?
The floor was too low, James is what that means.
Okay. What is a skid? The
Skid is the thing that skids on the ground.
Okay. So maybe a little more detail. The
Skid is, uh, okay, how do I Hmm, here we go.
So the bottom of the car generates a lot of down force, um, from the floor, which is also known as diffuser.
Right. Um, and that is usually made outta carbon.
It no, it's not. It is made outta carbon fiber.
Um, the lower there's, there's levels to the floor.
So you've got the main structure is the carbon floor diffuser.
Then the next lower level is a piece of wood.
Um, and that is there to protect the carbon part of the floor.
Um, below that, in Formula one, there's actually titanium little blocks that create the spark shows that we have come so used to seeing.
Um, but that is not for any sort of performance or protection thing that is purely an aesthetic feature.
But, so that's the lowest point on the car.
But above that is a wood but plank strip that runs from the beginning of the floor to not quite the, the furthest end of the, of the floor, but call it 70% of the surface area of the floor is protected by this wood.
And the lower the cars run, the, in theory, the more downforce they generate, the more efficient downforce they generate from the bottom of the car.
There are rules in place by the series to limit how low cars run.
And the way that they can police that is by deeming a minimum skid thickness at the end of a race.
So that prevents a team from lowering the car way more than another team and, and getting an advantage.
I say that in in air quotes because it's not always an advantage, but getting some sort of advantage, um, from a team that is not wearing their skid as much.
So that is, that is what a, a skid is in the simplest terms that I can describe it.
And it is used as a protection against the floor, but also as a policing device for the series.
Is that, is that a decent summary? Let's
Put it this way.
Tim, do you understand what he's saying? I
Get it a little bit more now.
Yeah. So it's, it's not so much
that a thin skid gave them an advantage.
It's the thing that potentially gave them the advantage would have worn the skid out more. There you go.
Correct. Okay, that makes sense.
So the lower right height means you hit the, hit the ground more means the skid comes in too thin.
So the skid and F1 starts at 10 mil and you are allowed to wear one mil, one millimeter of, of thickness.
So there are four points, I believe that they measure, um, like predetermined points of the floor at different parts of the floor that they measure post-race.
And you are allowed a, I wanna say it's 0.02
or sorry, 0.2 mil, uh, leeway.
So essentially anywhere from 9.2 to
8.8 is kind of like within that.
I guess you weren't being above, doesn't matter.
So basically it's 8.8 is kind
of like the tolerance that they allow.
Um, so it's one millware plus a 0.2 tolerance. So,
And, and before you continue, this isn't just an F1 thing, like a lot of different racing series use this as a, as a rule.
So this isn't some strange one-off sort Of situation.
I've been disqualified from second place for this exact infraction.
Um, you sure have. I sure have. You sure have.
So I know this pain well, you A dirty cheater.
And, and, and as much as I like to give you for your disqualification, very similar circumstances Yes.
Caused this to unfold very similar.
So why don't you explain what those circumstances are, James?
So how a team prevents this from happening normally is throughout practice.
At some point you will load the car up with fuel and you will go do a long run.
You will then look at the data and assess how much the car has been striking the ground, how much where there was with the amount of laps that you've done.
And kind of extrapolate that throughout the 50 laps in this case of a grand Prix.
So you know how much is gonna wear and you can set your ride heights accordingly.
They take so many things into consideration, right?
You gotta factor in your tire pressures, you gotta factor in the fuel burn.
You gotta factor in the temperature 'cause that affects the air density, which affects the downforce.
And there are um, like a thousand things you have to take into account when you are calculating how low to run the car, to not wear the skid past that one mill tolerance.
In Vegas, it was a bit of a unique circumstance because first of all, it's a straight circuit, which means that the track evolution or how much faster the track goes session over session is quite high.
What that changes is how quick your cornering can sometimes affect how much the floor hits in certain places.
So as the track speeds up, normally the right heights need to come up as well because the faster you go, essentially the more you're gonna drag the floor on the ground.
In, uh, F1, traditionally they do a lot of their full fuel running.
In fp two second practice, Every session in Vegas was disrupted by something.
And in fp two it was just a lot of red flags.
And most teams didn't get a chance to do a lot of laps on full fuel to get the necessary data to make their call.
This exact same thing in, in the reverse happened to McLaren in Austin.
So in Austin it was a sprint race. So only get one practice.
They don't do a lot of long running in that sprint race practice.
They use the sprint race essentially as their practice to get their data for the Grand Prix.
Sort of well known, well documented after Austin, the cars weren't very fast in the race and they said part of that was because they went very conservative on ride heights because they got taken out in the first corner of the sprint race and didn't get a lot of useful data at a track that's very bumpy and wear skids.
And we've actually seen cars disqualified for this at Austin in the past.
Fast forward to Vegas, they obviously thought they had done enough.
This was not a case where they went in unknowing or feeling like they didn't know or else they would've gone the conservative route like they did in Austin.
There could be a combination of factors.
I mean there is a combination of factors that led to this, but they were aware that it was gonna be a problem, which is why late in the race, Lando was slowing down three to four seconds a lap.
It's because they wanted him to lift at the end of the straits.
'cause at the end of the straits you're going the fastest, which means you're having the most down force on the car.
It's getting pushed down and it drags the floor.
So he had a, whatever it was, 15 second margin of George Russell.
So he started slowing up 2, 3, 4 seconds a lap by lifting at the end of the straits to try to mitigate the damage to the floor.
Ultimately it wasn't enough and the double disqualification is a result.
The amount that they were beyond tolerance was something like 0.12 of a mil.
So, which I believe they did, but they were quick to point out is less than the width of the average human hair.
Correct. So when you, when people online are like,
oh my god, what a massive screw up from these guys.
I, I just wanna put into perspective that we're talking about the difference in the width of a human hair here.
So while yes, it's a screw up Like Tim's or mine, Uh, good call , Tim's, I think Tim's I think are about four times the, the thickness of the average human hair.
So like, so like that's a pretty big mess up if it was Tim's hair Fair.
Yeah. This is not a, this is not a Tim hair.
This is, this is Alex or James hair for sure. Got it.
Yeah. That Thin um, yeah, that
thin .
I get it, man. You're pushing, you're pushing
to win Formula one races.
You've gotta maximize everything.
I think the, the criticism of the team's a little bit harsh because Ferrari's been docked for this.
Mercedes has been docked for this, uh, Sal's been docked for this.
But Alex, I I want to ask you your opinion sort of on, 'cause one of the things going around a lot, the opinion of a lot of people is they've already won the constructors.
Orlando's got a, you know, whatever it was gap in the, in the driver's championship.
Why not be a little bit conservative if there's any question mark?
Well, I think, I think you already hit the nail on the head.
I don't think there was a question mark.
Um, because I, I don't know that their mindset is any different than that.
Um, I think this is just an opinion and a theory that I have generated since you were kind of explaining all this.
I wonder if Austin had anything to play into it being as though they were like, man, too conservative.
We way overshot last time that we had a question mark.
So we, we have a question mark still.
'cause we had limited running, but like, let's not make the same mistake we made in Austin.
You know, Orlando's on poll, max is second.
Like we can't, we can't really afford to just give one away.
So let's not be stupid here, but let's not take the same sort of steps we did in Austin.
I wonder if that is actually what was their demise more than anything else?
Had Austin never happened.
They probably would've been just fine.
So I wonder if, I mean the, the the butterfly effect, right?
The cause and effect Yeah. Of every choice we make.
Had Lando and Oscar not been taken out, um, by Hulk?
Well it was, it wasn't taken out by anyone had the racing instant in Austin turn one sprint race, which we shouldn't even have.
Okay. , If the thing that Max thinks we shouldn't have,
IE sprint races is what caused both McLaren to go out and cause them both to suck in Austin, which ultimately led to their DQ in Vegas, all of which potentially is gonna hand max of championship.
It's very interesting. It's
Very interesting.
It is. That's like such a good point though.
Did they just get, I mean whatever the opposite of gun shy, I guess overconfident based on coming up short in Austin.
And again, but like, this is what I wanna just stress to people.
The margins that we're talking about are so small.
They are so tiny.
It's, it's now look every and, and a very good defense is Yeah, but the other nine teams did it fine.
Yep. 100%.
Like I'm not saying they didn't make a mistake. Yeah. But
That's usually, that's usually how it works.
It's very rare that four teams get disqualified, right? Correct.
Correct. Um, it's gonna be so fascinating to see
what comes outta that from the sense of, you know, their processes and procedures moving forward for that type of thing.
But now this begs the question because Lando went into, um, Uh, That race 24 points ahead of Oscar and like 40, whatever it was, nine points ahead of max.
So it was going to be the defacto lead car, favorite car.
There's so many elements to this. Correct.
So Max could have been eliminated actually, to be fair, even if they finished and kept their points, max wasn't eliminated.
He still had, you know, a two point buffer, you know, but for all intents, <crosstalk>, but it was a lot harder.
Yeah. Now Max is within a race win,
which is terrifying. He's tied with
See nine of 'em.
Yep. He sure does.
As he laid, as he made sure to point out on the podium, , she is tied with Oscar.
Nice, nice. Tied with Oscar
and with you with the momentum that Red Bull has right now, you've gotta think that they're going to be favorites over the next two weekends, even though the, the track guitar should in theory favor the McLaren a little bit more.
Max is just so good and the Red Bull has gotten better.
So I don't know if that's even the case anymore.
So if you are McLaren, even though you have said time and time again, we're gonna let 'em race until one of 'em is mathematically out of it with the threat of Max, with the mistakes that have been made by the team with the gap that Lando has over Oscar and the momentum and pace that Max have now, do you prioritize Lando and, and kind of break your own rule and say, look, I know Oscar
'cause I'm mathematically out of it, but he's realistically in a tough spot given everything, et cetera.
Okay, so I I see your point. I disagree.
I'm not saying I I'm not saying that's my stance, right? I'm just asking the question.
Well, I would, I would've said that that was a much clearer position for them to take for the past, the two-ish, call it two events.
Now I don't think you can do that because Oscar quite frankly has his, okay.
No, you can't say that Lando has a be if you're concerned, if you're, if you're so concerned with Max, right?
And we all know that probably Max is better than Oscar, but still Oscar Oscar's in a better car.
So if you're so concerned that Max is potentially gonna steal this away from Lando, Oscar's the same amount of points back.
So you can't then if you think it's that viable, that Lando can be caught.
You can't prioritize Lando over Oscar at this point.
You gotta give Oscar the same sort of shot.
Right. But then it's, it's
because that would be admitting that you think that Max is better than Oscar.
You like, that's admitting to your own driver that hey, we don't have faith that you can do what you could dot this point. I
Bet at this point Oscar admits that I, which which, which one of the 20 drivers don't admit that You just, you look at the last, you know, six, seven weekends, he's out like a hundred points. Well
It's insane. So,
So it's if you're Oscar and they come to you and say that, it's almost hard to argue.
But, so look at it this way.
'cause this was an interesting point that was brought up and it was the only thing that made me cut.
'cause like, again, you've had this stance and you know, I actually interviewed Zach over the weekend and he brought up a great point, which was this Let 'em race rule is not a Zach Brown rule.
This is a McLaren philosophy. It's been like that forever.
That's how they lost the championship in oh seven, right?
Hmm. And he, he said, he
and Andrea Esella have said, happy to lose the championship the right way.
Not happy, but like a risk we're willing to take.
But a great point was made, Which was, so you just say that when you have 104 point lead in the world driver championship, but Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So, so a great point was made after the summer break,
after Orlando has his mechanical at Zan and Oscar's got a 34 point lead.
Everyone said, you gotta bass p you gotta back pry, like stick with him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Time has shown that that was an ill-advised approach back then.
'cause that would be not a great situation now.
But you look at the fact that a mechanical issue from the team robbed him of second place and 18 points in zandor, a mechanical discrepancy and set up in Vegas cost him second place and 18 points in Vegas.
So he's a, he's net down 36 points, which means that he should have had Max actually he would've won the championship.
Now that's not true because Oscar, let's say Oscar wasn't also disqualified this weekend, right?
So Oscar keeps his whatever points and Lando keeps his whatever points.
So Lando Oscar's still in it, but Max is eliminated.
Max isn't even a threat. He's mathematically out of it.
'cause that would be 58 points. Are
You saying is zero zero mechanical DNFs this year?
Because that's an irrelevant point you're making. If he did,
I don't remember idea.
The only idea only DNFI remember him having was Austria when he got taken out by Antonelli on the first lab.
Okay, well That's his think off hand.
No, no, no, but I'm saying from the team standpoint, the team, sure.
McLaren has 36 Points.
Right? I understand what you're saying. And
So, so there's, there's an argument to be made where they kind of owe him 36 points.
And so maybe the best way to do that is to prioritize him over Oscar.
Because what I will say is you look at Oscar's run of form, like the last few races, the last six, seven races, it doesn't matter because Oscar was never ahead of land.
So there's nothing you can do to prioritize.
Qatar is a very good track for Oscar and a lot of people are expecting him to be very strong there.
If we get there and Lando is quicker and practice and qualifies better, this is a moot point anyway.
Hmm. But this is a track that people are predicting him
to be maybe a lot closer on par, maybe even a bit better than Lando.
And if that situation arises, arises, what do you do?
It's, it's fascinating. I'm with you.
You've, you've planted your flag on this, let them race thing.
I agree with that, but I, I do see some of the counterpoints, I do see some of the arguments as to, uh, as to letting it go here.
Here's, here's the thing. They can do whatever they want.
Max is winning this thing. So it it, there's your new point.
It doesn't matter. Okay. He's, he's what?
He's he's done so much at this point.
It's just not, it's not gonna, the train ain't stopping The, the, the championship I think is going to be decided by Mercedes and Ferrari.
Mm-hmm. Because if Max wins
and these guys keep finishing second, it's, you know, he doesn't get it.
But if Max wins, which again, I do think he will, I think he can easily sweep the last 58 points available.
And it's not about Max winning or not, it's about, I know, can LeClaire get in there?
Can Russell get in there? Can these guys mix
it up and take points away From Claire?
James, what I, what I'm telling you is this will be the, I don't think it's an exact example, but was it Masa who lost the championship in oh eight or whatever?
Like when, when, when, when, when it starts coming like this and if, let's say if Max puts it on pole for a sprint racing guitar, and if he wins, I just don't think I, I think stuff's gonna happen.
I think that the amount of pressure and the realization that this is slipping through your fingers will be too high.
And so I don't know that it'll, I agree with in theory what you're saying, of course, the way math works, they can't just finish second to finish out the season.
But if Max continues and stepping on their throats like he's doing, because we'll talk about on Thursday, because forget prank, plank wear set up, whatever aside, max owned everyone once again.
Yeah. From, yeah. From lap one. Turn one.
So if he just keeps that going, I don't, I don't know if anyone, I don't, I'm not talking about land and Oscar Lando and Oscar, I don't know if anyone can, can handle that. So
Any human being Yeah. On Earth,
It's a great point and it's gonna be fun to watch.
Um, but man, it's, I can't imagine how much sleep the Andrea es Stellas and Zach Browns of the world lost on Saturday night.
Vegas, Vegas on that topic. I thought it was very cool.
And something that is very on F1 one, um, where once the penalty came out, the, the statement from the team and Andrea was essentially we're sorry to the drivers, um, because we let them down.
You know, we, we made a mistake, blah, blah, blah.
But, but a lot of the times it's, you know, a team statement in, in this instance will be, you know, we, we respect the Stewart's decision.
We will be appealing or we respect the Stewart's decision and onto whatever this was apologetic to their two drivers, to their partners, um, to the fans and, and taking full responsibility, which is just not something you see very much of. So,
Dude, I gotta say, I mean, sucks.
Andreas still is, Andreas still is a easy gangster that guy.
He's very good at what he does, and he is got a humility and, and an awesomeness about him that, yeah, kind of to your point is it can sometimes be, you could look at it as maybe a little bit on F1, but I got a lot of time for that guy, as a lot of people do.
Oh yeah. So there you go.
That's kind of the breakdown of that.
Like, uh, as, uh, Alex mentioned, we're gonna get into the race itself and some IndyCar news, some cool breaking stuff happened over the week.
And we'll recap Nashville, we'll recap Nashville and we'll tell everybody what we're thankful for.
But until then, I don't know, do some stuff or not, Whatever.
Yeah.
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