Russell disqualified from the Belgian GP, Hamilton inherits win

Russell delivered a brilliant drive on a one-stop strategy to take what should've been his third Formula 1 career win.

However it has been revealed that post-race checks of Russell's Mercedes W15 have shown a discrepancy in the weight of the car.

The #63 Mercedes has been found to be underweight and was referred to the stewards.

The report of the FIA's technical delegate stated: "After the Race, car number 63 [Russell] was weighed and its weight was 798.0 kg, which is the minimum weight required by TR 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 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," the statement, by Jo Bauer, concluded.

Russell and a Mercedes team representative met with the steward who have decided to disqualify the Briton with all other drivers moving up one position.

That means Lewis Hamilton is the official winner of the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

The FIA explained their decision on Document 44 stating: "The Stewards heard from the team representative of Car 63 (George Russell), the FIA Technical Delegate, the FIA Single Seater Director and the FIA Single Seater
Technical Director.

"Car 63 was weighed on the FIA inside and outside scales with both scales showing the same result of 796.5 kg. The calibration of both scales was confirmed and witnessed by the competitor.

"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."

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff issued a statement after Russell's disqualification, 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 on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.

"Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend," Wolff insisted. "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," the Austrian concluded.