Explained: Why FIA disqualified George Russell from winning the Belgian Grand Prix

George Russell was stripped of his victory at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

Hours after George Russell claimed victory at Spa-Francorchamps after a thrilling race, the FIA disqualified the Mercedes driver. Here’s why…

Having claimed his fourth F1 race victory in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, Russell was cruelly stripped of his win hours after the race with the FIA stewards finding the #63 Mercedes to have been underweight.

Why was George Russell disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix?

With high tyre degradation expected in the Belgian Grand Prix, George Russell pitted at the end of Lap 10 to swap from his medium tyres to a set of hards.

With the majority of the front-runners employing a two-stop strategy, Russell began planting the seed of trying to eke out his tyres as he suggested a one-stop over team radio.

As the laps ticked by and others, including teammate Lewis Hamilton, pitted for another set of tyres, Russell moved into a decisive lead, but the question mark was whether he could massage his tyres home with sufficient pace to hold off the fast-charging Hamilton and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri as the duo used their fresher tyres to pursue.

Lap after lap, Hamilton and Piastri closed in on Russell but, ultimately, fell just shy of being able to mount a full-on attack on Russell’s lead despite finishing within DRS range – the British driver logging his fourth win in F1 in impressive fashion.

But word filtered through two hours after the race – the post-race scrutineering processes had revealed that Russell’s car was below the minimum weight limit.

F1 cars, while completely empty of fuel, together with the weight of the drivers (including helmets, overalls, HANS devices and all their racing accoutrements), must weigh 798 kilogrammes. The figure for Russell and his car was just shy of that – 1.5 kilogrammes below – at 796.5 kilogrammes.

The FIA checked the calibration of both of their weighing scales – the scales built inside their garage at Spa-Francorchamps, as well as the one outside – but both yielded the same figure of 796.5 kilogrammes.

With no alternative, given the breach of the technical regulations decreeing 798 kilogrammes, the stewards summoned Mercedes’ representatives on the grounds of an alleged breach of Article 4.1 of the Technical Regulations.

This Article states: “The mass of the car, without fuel, must not be less than 798kg at all times during the Competition.

“If, when required for checking, a car is not already fitted with dry-weather tyres, its mass will be determined using a set of dry-weather tyres selected by the FIA technical delegate.”

The meeting of Mercedes with the stewards was to ensure that all processes were checked to the satisfaction of both parties, as well as evaluate the possibility of mitigating circumstances – an example of this could include damage to the car that resulted in the loss of bodywork and its resulting weight.

But the steward’s verdict was released quickly, with the issue quite clear-cut as Mercedes agreed the scales were correct and that there were no mitigating circumstances – Russell’s car was simply underweight by 1.5 kilogrammes and, as a consequence, was disqualified.

The result promoted Russell’s Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton to the win, with Oscar Piastri second for McLaren, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third.

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What’s the likely reason for George Russell’s disqualification?

While unconfirmed at this point, a likely candidate for the car being 1.5 kilogrammes underweight is the tyres.

Having run far longer than expected on his hard set, more rubber would have worn off the four tyres than expected – particularly pertinent as the one-stop strategy was not the initial plan for Russell.

This, itself, would add up to a few hundred grammes, and this would have been exacerbated by the lack of cooldown lap at Spa-Francorchamps. Usually, when drivers finish a race, they perform a full lap of the track – giving them the chance to drive over all the discarded rubber marbles from the race and getting all the detritus to stick to their hot tyres to add on a little bit of weight.

However, with Spa being over five kilometres long, there is no cooldown lap – the drivers simply turn around at La Source hairpin and drive backwards up the pitlane to Parc Ferme, meaning their tyres remain clean.

What did George Russell and Mercedes have to say afterwards?

“[It’s] heartbreaking…” Russell posted on social media after confirmation of his disqualification.

“We came in 1.5kg underweight and have been disqualified from the race. We left it all on the track today and I take pride in crossing the line first. There will be more to come.”

Mercedes released a statement regarding the disqualification, admitting its culpability for the issue.

“We have to take our disqualification on the chin,” said team principal Toto 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.”

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