Written by Owen Bradley
George Russell has been Disqualified from the F1 Belgian Grand Prix after the weight of his Mercedes was 1.5kg lighter than the FIA's regulations.
Russell crossed the line to take victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after performing the alternate one-stop strategy, narrowly beating his teammate Lewis Hamilton and McLaren's Oscar Piastri. However, with Russell disqualified from the race, Lewis Hamilton now becomes the winner of the Belgian Grand Prix 2024.
Mercedes opted to only bring Russell into the pits once, putting the Brit on the Hard compound tyres, as the others made another stop. Towards the end of the race, Hamilton and Piastri would catch Russell by around a second per lap.
The Mercedes has been found to not comply with the FIA's weight restrictions, and has been recorded at 1.5kg lighter than the regulations allow. With Hamilton and Piastri unable to make their way past Russell, this weight reduction almost certainly affected the outcome of the race, as Hamilton would be unable to overtake his teammate despite getting close on the final couple of laps.
Hamilton will therefore take the Grand Prix victory, with Piastri in second and Leclerc third. Elsewhere, Daniel Ricciardo will now score points for RB, and Max Verstappen now recovers from 11th on the grid, to 4th place.
At the Belgian GP, drivers are not able to do a cool down lap, and go back into the pitlane after the first corner. If Russell had been able to do a cool down lap, the problem may have been identified and Mercedes may have been able to salvage the car.
Toto Wolff and Mercedes team statement: "We have to take our disqualification on the chin. We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it. We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong. To lose a 1-2 is frustrating and we can only apologise to George, who drove a strong race.
Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy on the two stop and is a deserving winner. Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend."
George Russell's statement: "Heartbreaking. We came in 1.5kg underweight and have been disqualified from the race. We left it all on track today and I take pride in crossing the line first. There will be more to come."
Updated F1 Belgian GP Results
1st Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
2nd Oscar Piastri, McLaren
3rd Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
4th Max Verstappen, Red Bull
5th Lando Norris, McLaren
6th Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
7th Sergio Perez, Red Bull
8th Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
9th Esteban Ocon, Alpine
10th Daniel Ricciardo, RB
11th Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
12th Alex Albon, Williams
13th Pierre Gasly, Alpine
14th Kevin Magnussen, Haas
15th Valtteri Bottas, Sauber
16th Yuki Tsunoda, RB
17th Logan Sargeant, Williams
18th Nico Hulkenberg, Haas
DNF Guanyu Zhou, Sauber
DSQ George Russell, Mercedes
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