Martin Brundle believes that Ferrari’s decision to put Lewis Hamilton on fresh tyres with a huge deficit to Max Verstappen to make up may have contributed to the Brit’s disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend. Hamilton was running fifth during the middle portion of the Grand Prix and struggling to extract pace from his Ferrari machinery. To make matters worse, the seven-time world champion had a charging Verstappen behind him, who was growing into his stint and had the pace to pass his former title rival comfortably.

Ferrari, therefore, made the strategy call to bring Hamilton in for new tyres, bringing him out with fresh rubber but a considerable gap to make up ahead of him. This forced the 40-year-old to push flat out until the end of the Grand Prix in an attempt to restore his track position – a strategy that was ultimately unsuccessful.

After the chequered flag, Hamilton was called to the stewards after his car failed post-race inspection. The Ferrari star was disqualified for having excessive plank wear – 0.5mm beyond the minimum height – and stripped of his sixth-place finish. According to Brundle, this might have been linked to his strategy.

Explaining his theory about the disqualification, Brundle wrote in his Sky Sports column: “Somehow on lower fuel, or simply track conditions, and probably even the realisation that he [Verstappen] didn’t need to babysit the tyres so much, this allowed him to catch the Ferraris.

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“In fact, Max would deliver his fastest and front-running lap time on the final tour, which is a bit confusing. Hamilton was pitted as there was nothing much to lose except putting him behind Verstappen but on much better tyres.

“Lewis would then push hard to the end of the race, a factor which may well have contributed to his eventual disqualification. Hamilton’s car was thrown out for running too close to the ground and overly wearing away the legality skid block underneath by half a millimetre.

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“This rule is in place to stop teams running these ground-effect aero cars too low to gain performance but then trashing super expensive floors every day.”

Hamilton wasn’t the only driver to be disqualified in Shanghai. Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc was omitted from the final classification after his SF-25 machine came in 1kg underweight, and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly suffered the same fate as the Monegasque racer.