EXCLUSIVE:George Russell’s Belgian F1 GP disqualification hands Lewis Hamilton victory.. full details below ⏬ ⏬
Russell’s Mercedes found to be below allowable weightOscar Piastri promoted to second, Charles Leclerc thirdGeorge Russell ran the full gamut of emotion from euphoria to heartbreak in what must have been the most painful race of his career. The British driver had won the Belgian Grand Prix only to have the victory whisked away two hours later when his Mercedes was discovered to have been underweight. The sport reminded all that it could be unpredictable, beguiling and then brutally cruel in one fell swoop, as his disqualification meant victory was passed to his teammate Lewis Hamilton.As the slings and arrows go, even fortune herself might feel this went beyond the outrageous. Yet there can be no argument; as Mercedes acknowledged, they had failed within a part of the regulations where there is simply no grey area.After Russell took what had been a remarkable win at Spa, making a one-stop strategy work against the odds, beating Hamilton into second, the sport’s governing body, the FIA, went about its usual business of inspecting his car, weighed it and found it underweight by 1.5kg of the regulated 798kg. Mercedes were summoned to the stewards to make their case but it was dismissed, the minimum weight limit stipulated to ensure there is a level playing field for all the cars, with it being clear that a lighter car would enjoy a pace advantage. Russell’s disqualification was all but a formality after an error the team held their hands up to.Russell described it as heartbreaking, a far cry from his earlier media activities where he had beamed his way through, eyes alight, revelling in what had been such an unlikely win. Perhaps it had felt almost unbelievable, as it was painfully to prove. A brief, intoxicating mirage.Hamilton in turn had been disappointed to claim only second, having been in control for much of the race at the front and convinced that he too could have tried the one-stop strategy that put his teammate on top, but this is not how he would have wanted to secure the 105th win of his career.Russell has suffered before. At the Sakhir Grand Prix in 2020, when given a chance because Hamilton had Covid, he was on for a win on his Mercedes debut only for a puncture and a team pit stop error to scupper his chances. He was left in tears but this was an altogether different scale of anguish, having done so much for his bold choice to pay off only for the result to be out of his hands.It was all the more cruel given this had been the best win of his career and one that demonstrated that for all that engineering excellence matters – for the mechanical minutiae, the attention to detail – what still makes the difference is what the driver with their hands on the wheel feels.
