By Much to his surprise after securing the race, George Russell was disqualified after his Mercedes was found to be under-weight by 1,5kg.
Russell had a great race and was victorious, but he shortly learnt that it was not meant to be. A Technical Delegate Report revealed after the race that Russell’s car weight was 796.5kg, which is below the minimum required 798kg.
The report was handed to the stewards who in turned confirmed the disqualification of George Russell from the Belgian Grand Prix.
“The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scale and the weight was 796.5 kg. The calibration of the outside and inside scale was confirmed and witnessed by the competitor.
As this is 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requested in the 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 consideration,” read the report.
The stewards however found that the mistake was genuine and the report to be accurate, but were forced to apply the relevant penalty for infringing Article 4.1. As such, Russell was disqualified and other competitors were promoted.
Following the disqualification of Russell, Lewis Hamilton was promoted to P1, Oscar Piastri promoted to P2 and Charles Leclerc to P3.
On his X account, George Russell said the outcome was heart-breaking and more so that he had to walk away from his victory leaving it all on the track. He is however not discouraged.
“We left it all on the track today and I take pride in crossing the line first. There will be more to come (referring to trophies)” said Russell.
The Team Principal and CEO for Mercedes AMG Petronas Toto Wolf said they have taken the disqualification on the chin. He said they clearly made a mistake and are going to learn from it. They will evaluate and try to understand what went wrong.
Wolf says they can only apologies to Russell who drove a strong race.
“Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend. We had a car that was a benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies. Only a few months ago, that would have been inconceivable.
We head into the summer break having won three of the past four races. We will look to come back after shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory,” said Toto Wolf.
