Belgium Grand Prix : George Russell's victory suspended over underweight car

Belgium, 

Sunday, 28 July, 2024 

McCreadie Andias 

Mercedes George Russell's Belgium Grand Prix victory has been suspended following a post - race inspection that revealed his car was underweight. 

According to the report from the FIA, Russell’s car was drained of 2.8-litres to fulfil the 1.0-litre fuel sample required by Article 6.5.2 after the initial weighing, fuel was left in the car when that is apparently not allowed.

“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 principal Toto Wolff wrote in a statement. 

Teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was the runner-up has since been awarded the victory.

Formula 1 stewards summoned Mercedes after race officials reviewed the technical report about the car’s weight.

The car was found to be at exactly the 798kg limit, but it still had to be drained of fuel with enough left in the tank to fulfill Article 6.5.2 which states that each car must ensure that a 1.0-litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the competition.

“We will go away and evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong. To lose 1-2 is frustrating, and we can only apologize to George, who drove such a strong race.” FIA noted 

Hamilton will now pick up his 105th victory in Formula 1 while McLaren’s Oscar Piastri moved up into second while Charles Leclerc was bumped up to a podium finish for Ferrari.

Max Verstappen initially finished the race in fifth place behind Leclerc. He posted the fastest lap in qualifying but had a 10-second grid penalty enforced for using too many power units in his Red Bull.