George Russell has been disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix after his Mercedes was found to be 1.5kg underweight in post-race technical scrutineering, leaving team mate Lewis Hamilton as the winner..
Russell seized an amazing victory in the race after pulling off a 34-lap run on a single set of hard tyres to finish just ahead of Hamilton and McLaren's Oscar Piastri in a hard-fought race on Sunday.
But post-race checks found that his W15 had failed to meet minimum weight requirements: "After the Race, car number 63 was weighed and its weight was 798.0 kg, which is the minimum weight required by TR Article 4.1.
"After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed," the official scrutineering document signed by the FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer continued.
"The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales and the weight was 796.5 kg. The calibration of the outside and inside scales was confirmed and witnessed by the competitor.
"As this is 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requested in TR Article 4.1, which also has to be respected at all times during the Competition, I am referring this matter to the Stewards for their consideration."
The team was summoned to see the race stewards, which confirmed the findings and delivered the inevitable verdict stripping Russell of his victory.
"The stewards heard from the team representative of Car 63 (George Russell), the FIA Technical Delegate, the FIA Single Seater Director and the FIA Single Seater Technical Director," the final statement said.
© Mercedes
"During the hearing the team representative confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly.
"The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.
Confirming the disqualification, the stewards said: Article 4.1 of the FIA Formula 1 Technical Regulations has been breached and therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement needs to be applied."
The decision hands today's victory to Hamilton with Piastri promoted to second and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc joining them on the podium, with Max verstappen and Lando Norris just missing out.
Mercedes principal Toto Wolff posted a reaction on X shortly after leaving the circuit: "We have to take our disqualification on the chin. 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."
"Heartbreaking," Russell wrote on social media. "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."
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