Mercedes apologise to George Russell after team ‘mistake’ saw him disqualified from Belgian Grand Prix just hours after winning
- George Russell looks set to win the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday
- But he was later disqualified because his car weighed 1.5kg less than expected.
- After Russell’s disqualification, his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton was promoted to the front row.
Mercedes have released a statement after losing their one-two finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.
George Russell crossed the line first, ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, after executing a daring one-stop strategy at Spa.
However, just hours after the race, Russell was disqualified after his car was found to weigh 1.5 kilograms less than expected.
His car was initially weighed at 798 kg, the minimum weight allowed for the car and driver combined.
But the stewards later found that the car had not been completely emptied of fuel and so the weight was adjusted to 796.5kg.
George Russell (right) pictured celebrating his first place at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday
But he was later disqualified, and victory was awarded to his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes responded to the news of Russell’s disqualification by admitting its “mistake” in a statement from team principal and CEO Toto Wolff.
“We have to take our disqualification head on,” Wolff said.
“We clearly made a mistake and we have to make sure we learn from it. We’re going to go back, assess what happened and understand what went wrong.”
“Losing a double is frustrating and we can only apologise to George who drove such a solid race.
“Lewis is obviously promoted to P1; he was the quickest guy over the two stops and deserves his win.
“Despite the disqualification, we can take many positives from this weekend. We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race, and that was in two different strategies. Just a few months ago, this would have been inconceivable.
“We go into the summer break having won three of the last four races. We will be looking to return after the competition break reinvigorated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory.”
Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff released a statement following the disqualification
Despite their recent run of excellent results, Mercedes currently sit fourth in the 2024 constructors’ standings.
Red Bull leads with 408 points, followed by McClaren with 366, Ferrari with 345 and Mercedes with 266.
