Well, that was anti-climactic. Just hours after Mercedes AMG Petronas celebrated its one-two finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, the supposed race winner George Russell has been disqualified. Tough luck.
Russell had already secured what should have been his third Grand Prix win after a successful one-stop strategy at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps this race weekend. It was supposed to be a big weekend for Mercedes, as Russell’s teammate Lewis Hamilton finished closely in second.
Unfortunately for Russell and the rest of Mercedes, the 26-year-old British driver has now been stripped of his win after his car was found to have been underweight during the race. Hamilton now inherited the win, while McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was promoted to P2 and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc up to the podium at P3.
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According to the official press release, a Technical Delegate’s Report released after the race stated that the car—which had originally been assessed as compliant with the weight restrictions—was discovered to be underweight after 2.8 liters of fuel were removed.
The report read: “The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as TR Article 6.5.2 is fulfilled. The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales and the weight was 796.5 kg. The calibration of the outside and inside scales was confirmed and witnessed by the competitor. As this is 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requested in TR Article 4.1, which also has to be respected at all times during the competition, I am referring this matter to the stewards for their consideration.
Another document released thereafter read: “During the hearing the team representative confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly. The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.
“The stewards determine that Article 4.1 of the FIA Formula 1 Technical Regulations has been breached and therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement needs to be applied.”
“We have to take it on the chin if the stewards decide against ourselves. It is what it is, the mistake has happened,” said Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. “We have to learn from that. As a team there are more positives to take, obviously for George it’s a massive blow.”
After what was an exciting race, it’s a bummer it’s come to this. But at least the grid looks like it’s getting tighter and tighter by the week, right?
