- George Russell appeared to have won the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday
- But he was later disqualified because his car was found to be 1.5kg underweight
- After Russell’s DQ, Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton was promoted to first
Mercedes have issued a statement after losing their one-two finish in the Belgian Grand Prix.
George Russell crossed the line first, ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, after executing a bold one-stop strategy at Spa.
However, just hours after the race, Russell was disqualified after his car was found to have been 1.5 kilograms underweight.
His car was initially weighed at 798kg – the minimum weight permitted for car and driver combined.
But stewards later found that the car had not been fully drained of fuel and the weight was therefore adjusted to 796.5kg.
George Russell pictured (right) celebrating after finishing first in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix
But he was later disqualified, so the win was awarded to Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes responded to news of Russell’s disqualification by admitting their ‘mistake’ in a statement from team principle and CEO Toto Wolff.
‘We have to take our disqualification on the chin,’ said Wolff.
‘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. 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.’
Mercedes team principle and CEO Toto Wolff has released a statement following the DQ
Despite their recent run of excellent results, Mercedes currently sit fourth in the 2024 constructor standings.
Red Bull are top with 408 points, followed by McClaren with 366, Ferrari with 345 and Mercedes with 266.
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