Hamilton new Belgian GP winner after Russell disqualified

Spa-Francorchamps — Mercedes driver George Russell has been disqualified and lost his Belgium Grand Prix win on Sunday, after his car was found to be underweight, and his teammate Lewis Hamilton was promoted to first place.

Initially the car had been found to be compliant but the technical delegate’s report said that the car had not been fully drained of fuel.

The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales with both showing the same result of 796.5kg, 1.5kg below the minimum weight required and all other drivers move up one place in the classification.

“During the hearing the team representatives confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly,” the governing FIA said in their release.

“The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.”

Russell had led Hamilton home in a Mercedes one-two after he opted for a one-stop strategy.

The decision means that McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finishes second with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third.

“We have to take our disqualification on the chin. We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff 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.”

The inherited win means Hamilton has now won the Belgian Grand Prix five times, drawing level with Ayrton Senna and one behind Michael Schumacher who holds the record with six wins at Spa.

Update: July 28 2024
This story has been updated with the Hamilton announcement.

Reuters