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SPA FRANCORCHAMPS: Mercedes driver George Russell has been disqualified and lost his Belgium Grand Prix win on Sunday, after his car was found to be underweight, and his teammate Lewis Hamilton is promoted to first place.
Initially the car had been found to be compliant but the technical delegate’s report said that the car had not been fully drained of fuel.
The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales with both showing the same result of 796.5 kilogrammes, 1.5 kilogrammes below the minimum weight required and all other drivers move up one place in the classification.
“During the hearing the team representatives confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly,” the governing FIA said in their release. “The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.”
Russell had led Hamilton home in a Mercedes one-two after he opted for a one-stop strategy.
The decision means that McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finishes second with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third.
The inherited win means Hamilton has now won the Belgian Grand Prix five times, drawing level with Ayrton Senna and one behind Michael Schumacher who holds the record with six wins at Spa.
Hamilton now has two wins from the last three races and is the only driver apart from championship leader and triple world champion Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to win more than one race this season.
Hamilton outfought Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at the start to move into second and took the lead on lap three, overtaking Leclerc on the Kemmel straight.
Russell started sixth on the grid and came in for his first pit stop on lap 10 with Hamilton coming in two laps later, but while Hamilton came in again on lap 27, Mercedes were happy for his teammate to stay out until the end.
Hamilton closed the gap in the final laps but could not get close enough to overtake Russell and finished 0.526 seconds behind his team-mate, who won his second race of the season.
Piastri came in 1.173 seconds behind the leader, and his final pit stop where he ran over his marks cost him two precious seconds.
Verstappen moves up to fourth place, and with McLaren’s Lando Norris, finishing one place behind him, his overall lead remains at 78 points.
Piastri’s promotion to second does mean McLaren now go into the four-week break 42 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.
Verstappen began the race 11th on the grid after a 10-place grid penalty for taking on a fifth engine, and was unable to win his fourth successive Belgian GP. He has now gone four races without a win, the first time that has happened since 2020.
Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2024
