Ferrari’s double disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix has one former Ferrari driver scrambling for ideas.

Both of Ferrari’s drivers were disqualified for different technical infringements at last week’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Rene Arnoux: Irregularities should only warrant a caution on first offence

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were both disqualified from the race in Shanghai, hours after the flag when technical scrutineering revealed both cars were not entirely in conformity with the technical regulations – for different reasons.

For Leclerc, who finished fifth, his car was found to be a kilogramme under the minimum weight limit of 800kg. While his car had suffered damage during the race, the rules allowed Ferrari to replace the damaged parts for an identical specification but, even once this was done, the car was too light.

With no mitigating factors, Ferrari accepted the disqualification as a team error.

On Hamilton’s side of the garage, the underfloor skid plank of his car was found to be excessively worn – the minimum thickness is 9 millimetres, and his skid plank was worn to 8.5mm at its lowest.

“There was no intention to gain any advantage,” Ferrari said in a statement following the disqualifications.

“We will learn from what happened today and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again. Clearly it’s not the way we wanted to end our Chinese GP weekend, neither for ourselves, nor for our fans whose support for us is unwavering.”

But such minor offences, despite being in contravention of set limits, should trigger a ‘first warning’ system – that’s according to former Ferrari F1 driver and multiple Grand Prix winner Rene Arnoux.

The Frenchman, who won three races for the Scuderia in the mid-1980s, said a suspended sentence-type system could be explored.

“I exclude that there was any intention to cheat,” Arnoux told La Gazzetta Dello Sport.

“If Leclerc’s car had been ten kilos underweight, if the irregularity on Hamilton’s had been more conspicuous, we could talk about it. But like this? We are talking about trifles, obviously accidental.”

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When it was pointed out to him that a regulation has to have set measurements and tolerances in order to define the running parameters for cars, he replied, “Certainly, you can’t ignore it. Especially since weight is a fundamental element.

“But if everything is so complicated, if millimetres are enough to change performance, and if having everything under control is so difficult, then it would be a good idea to give a range within which irregularities lead to a first caution and only on the second offence is the real sanction triggered.

“A disqualification is too severe; plus, it has a repercussion on the whole championship, not just on the team and the driver suffering it.”

The disqualifications mean there is no Ferrari driver in the top five of the Drivers’ Championship, while the team itself is joint-fifth in the Constructors’ with Williams, already 61 points behind leaders McLaren.

Despite the high of Lewis Hamilton’s Sprint victory in Shanghai followed by Sunday’s lows, Arnoux said Fred Vasseur will keep his team in the running for the championship.

“I think it will be open,” he said.

“Also because finding a perhaps prodigious solution seems to be a matter of trifles, of millimetres.

“So I expect that in such a long championship, there will be solutions found by the best teams. Amongst which I am convinced is Ferrari.

“The responsibility is his. I don’t have a solution. It certainly started very, very badly.

“Yet I am convinced that Ferrari is at the level of the other best. Vasseur must make an effort to try to understand how it is possible that on Saturday Hamilton went very well, he was flying, and then on Sunday the car disappeared.

“With all those engineers, those computers, they have to figure it out as quickly as possible.”

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