Russell disqualified, Hamilton handed Belgian GP victory · RaceFans

Lewis Hamilton has inherited victory in the Belgian Grand Prix after his team mate was disqualified.

George Russell was stripped of his win after his Mercedes was found to be one-and-a-half kilograms below the minimum weight limit.

Formula 1 technical delegate Jo Bauer reported the car originally appeared to meet the minimum weight limit. However they then discovered the car had not been fully emptied of fuel as required by the technical rules, and once this was done it no longer met the required minimum weight.

“After the race, car number 63 was weighed and its weight was 798.0 kg, which is the minimum weight required by [Technical Regulations] Article 4.1.

“After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed. The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as [Technical Regulations] 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 [Technical Regulations] 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.”

Russell said the decision, which cost him the third win of his career, was “heartbreaking” but vowed “there will be more to come.”

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“We left it all on the track today and I take pride in crossing the line first,” he added.

Mercedes confirmed Russell’s car fell below the legal minimum due to a mistake on their part.

“During the hearing the team representative confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly,” the stewards noted. “The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said they “take our disqualification on the chin.”

“We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it,” he said. “We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong.

“To lose a one-two 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.”

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Wolff said there are still “many positives we can take from this weekend” despite their disqualification.

“We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies,” he said. “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’s disqualification promotes Hamilton to victory ahead of Oscar Piastri. Charles Leclerc moves into the final rostrum position. The remaining points scorers all move up one place and Daniel Ricciardo joins them, moving up to 11th.

The news means Mercedes have suffered their second disqualification due to a technical infringement in less than 12 months. Hamilton lost second place in the United States Grand Prix last year when his plank failed a post-race legality check. Ferrari driver Leclerc was also disqualified for the same reason in that race.

Hamilton has therefore taken his fifth victory in the Belgian Grand Prix. He lost what would have been his first win in the race 16 years ago due to a controversial post-race penalty for an overtaking move on Kimi Raikkonen.

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