George Russell cannot celebrate his Formula 1 victory in Belgium for long. His Mercedes is too light, as an investigation reveals. The Englishman is severely punished.
The Englishman George Russell has been disqualified after his Formula 1 victory in Belgium, thus involuntarily helping his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to his 105th career triumph. Russell's car with the number 63 was one and a half kilograms too light after the obligatory weighing. The minimum weight of a Formula 1 car is 798 kilograms, but Russell's car weighed only 796.5 kilograms. The race stewards therefore disqualified the car from the classification.
"During the hearing, the team representative confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all the necessary procedures were carried out correctly. The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine mistake by the team," the stewards' statement said.
Russell thus lost his third Formula 1 victory after masterfully winning the last Grand Prix before the summer break with a courageous one-stop strategy. The first beneficiary was Hamilton, who was just 0.5 seconds down on his team-mate at the finish line. McLaren driver Oscar Piastri moved up into second place ahead of Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari.
World champion Max Verstappen, who had already started the Belgian Grand Prix with a grid penalty, moved up to fourth ahead of Lando Norris in the second McLaren.
The Sauber team goes into the summer break without a single championship point. Zhou Guanyu parked his car in the garage after just five laps. Valtteri Bottas finished the race in 16th place and could have fought for a championship point if he had dared to change tires just once like Russell.
SDA
