George Russell has been disqualified from the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix after his car was found to be below the minimum weight required following the race.
Russell was referred to the Stewards after his car weighed in below the 798 kg limit stipulated in article 4.1 of the FIA’s 2024 F1 Technical Regulations.
“Car 63 is disqualified from the Race classification. All other drivers move up in the classification,” the official Stewards’ decision reads.
According to the official FIA decision, the Stewards heard from a Mercedes team representative. Russell’s car was found to be 796.5kg at the end of the race.
Crucially, Mercedes “acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.”
The Stewards, having determined Russell had indeed breached Article 4.1, applied the standard penalty.
Russell’s disqualification means team-mate Lewis Hamilton inherits the race win, having started from third. Oscar Piastri moves up to second place, with Charles Leclerc on the final spot of the podium.
Max Verstappen finishes in fourth ahead of Lando Norris in fifth and Carlos Sainz in sixth. Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso move up to seventh and eighth ahead of Esteban Ocon, and RB’s Daniel Ricciardo is promoted into the points to round out the revised top 10.
Prior to news of his disqualification, Russell had hailed his Spa victory as his best win in F1 so far.
The Brit pitted on Lap 11 for the Hard tyre, undercutting Piastri in the process. By Lap 32, he had pressed his team into a one-stop strategy and held off a surging Lewis Hamilton to take the checkered flag first.
Russell’s disqualification sees him fall back below Sergio Perez in the Driver’s Championship and puts a big dent in Mercedes’ Constructors Championship push.
The German marque now sits 79 points adrift of third-placed Ferrari.
In a statement, Mercedes Team Principal & CEO Toto Wolff said “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 such a strong race.”
Wolff said Hamilton was a “deserving winner” and said Mercedes could take away “many positives” from the race despite Russell’s sanction. He hailed the team’s strong performance and a car “that was the benchmark in today’s race,” something he said “would have been inconceivable” a few months ago.
Why not include, Lewis Hamilton was leading for most of the race in an undisputed winning position? Why only say that Lewis started from 3rd? What is the pertinence? You didn’t say that George started from 6th. Is it sloppy journalism or willful misrepresentation? You include intricate detail of George’s race. Why not say that Lewis was basically undercut by his teammate?