George Russell has been disqualified from the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, due to his Mercedes car being underweight.
Russell had beaten his Mercedes’ teammate, Lewis Hamilton to victory by 0.526 seconds, having executed an one-stop strategy with 34 laps on the hard tyre after he pitted on Lap 11.
Stewards post-race initially weighed his car at 798.o kg with fuel included but upon removing 2.8 litres of fuel, Russell’s Mercedes was weighed again and dropped to 796.5 kg which was 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requirement.
Mercedes subsequently confirmed that there are ‘no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.’
Stewards consequently determined ‘that Article 4.1 of the FIA Formula 1 Technical Regulations has been breached’, which meant that Russell was disqualified and Hamilton inherited the victory from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Speaking to the media post Russell’s disqualification, Team Principal, Toto Wolff accepted the stewards’ decision and vowed that the team must learn from their error.
“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 on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.”
Wolff however was optimistic about the “positives” learned in Spa Francorchamps heading into the summer break.
“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 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.”
Russell took heart from taking the checkered flag and vowed that it wouldn’t be his last on-track win at least during this season, as he shared a post on X.
Heartbreaking… We came in 1.5kg underweight and have been disqualified from the race.
We left it all on the track today and I take pride in crossing the line first.
There will be more to come.🏆💙 pic.twitter.com/6RfucAqPyF
— George Russell (@GeorgeRussell63) July 28, 2024
Hamilton added that the decision was “disappointing” but is pleased to be part of an “incredibly competitive” battle, now that they plus McLaren and Ferrari have caught up to Red Bull.
“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.”
The seven-time champion also was happy with his pace despite failing to take the win on track.
“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.”
Russell’s disqualification had no impact on the title race as Max Verstappen’s lead over Lando Norris stayed at 78 points, having been extended upon the initial conclusion of the race.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 44 | 1h 19m 57.552 |
| 2 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 44 | + 0.647 |
| 3 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 44 | + 8.023 |
| 4 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 44 | + 8..700 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 44 | + 9.324 |
| 6 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 44 | + 19.269 |
| 7 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | 44 | + 42.669 |
| 8 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 44 | + 43.195 |
| 9 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | 44 | + 49.437 |
| 10 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB | 44 | + 52.026 |
| 11 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 44 | + 54.400 |
| 12 | Alex Albon | Williams | 44 | + 62.485 |
| 13 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 44 | + 63.125 |
| 14 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | 44 | + 63.859 |
| 15 | Valtteri Bottas | Sauber | 44 | + 66.105 |
| 16 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB | 44 | + 70.112 |
| 17 | Logan Sargeant | Williams | 44 | + 76.211 |
| 18 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas | 44 | + 85.531 |
| DSQ | George Russell | Mercedes | 44 | + 88.307 |
| RET | Guanyu Zhou | Sauber | 5 | Power |
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