Formula 1 kicked up a storm as Lewis Hamilton was awarded the win for the Belgian Grand Prix after George Russell was disqualified.
Mercedes thought they had delivered a 1-2 finish in Spa after Russell managed his tyres to perfection and fended off his team-mate and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
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But after the podium celebrations were finished, news broke that one of the Silver Arrows had come in under the required weight upon testing.
An FIA statement said: “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.”
And after another hour of waiting around, it was confirmed Russell had been disqualified.
A further statement was released, saying: “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.”
New document: Doc 42 – Weight of Car Number 63
Published on 28-07-2024 17:52 CETHTTPS://T.CO/CVMCZPEERT#F1 #FORMULA1 #FIA #BELGIANGP 🇧🇪 PIC.TWITTER.COM/MTNE81PZZC— FIA F1 Documents Bot (@fiadocsbot) JULY 28, 2024
Word from Mercedes
Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff released a statement following the news.
He 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.
“Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy ont he two-stop and is a deserving winner.
“Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take away from this weekend.
“We had a car that was the 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 have 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.”
Lewis Hamilton inherits the #BELGIANGP victory following George Russell’s disqualification#F1 PIC.TWITTER.COM/HIJXFQNUM2
— Formula 1 (@F1) JULY 28, 2024
History for Hamilton
Russell had already taken to social media to celebrate his victory, but has since returned to admit how gutted he is to hear about the final outcome.
For Hamilton, it is a historic 105th victory and follows on from his win in Silverstone at the start of the month.
The seven-time world champion has now won two of the last three races and seems to have regained both his confidence and form for Mercedes.
Hamilton is the only driver other than Max Verstappen to have won multiple races in a season in some time and he will return after the summer break for his final stretch with the team before he leaves for Ferrari in 2025.
Speaking after being announced as the winner of the Belgian Grand Prix, he said: “It is of course disappointing for the team to lose the 1-2 but there are lots of positives to take away from today.
“The car was feeling good, and we had much better pace than we expected. There were several cars that seemed similar in terms of performance but once we had got ahead, we were able to maintain that position.
“We committed to the two-stop strategy and covered those directly behind us. George was able to make the one-stop work and, although I got close to him in the final few laps, I was unable to get past in the dirty air.
“I feel for George, and you don’t want to win a race through a disqualification, but we have been back in the fight for victories in the past few races.
“It is incredibly competitive now, so we will need to work hard to battle for wins more consistently. Nevertheless, we can go into the summer break with momentum and positivity.”
Next up is the Dutch Grand Prix on 25 August.
