Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has given his take on George Russell's disqualification from the Belgian Grand Prix.
It looked like Russell had pulled off an unlikely victory at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps thanks to an unprecedented one-stop strategy, which helped propel him from sixth to top spot.
He won the race on Sunday afternoon and covered his fellow drivers with champagne on the podium.
But an hour-and-a-half later, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton was officially handed his second win of the 2024 campaign after Russell was disqualified.
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Formula 1's governing body, the FIA, announced that Russell's Mercedes car weighed in at 796.5 kilograms, which is 1.5kg under the minimum weight required by the sport's regulations.
Russell’s one-stop strategy could have led to his disqualification, according to Sky Sports’ Craig Slater, who engaged in conversation with Mercedes after the race.
“The reasons? I’ve had some guidance from within the Mercedes team about why they were underweight. It was to do Russell’s single-stop strategy," Slater said.
“The teams know exactly how much weight they will shed when tyres wear down.
“Russell would have been expected to make two stops today. It was his own idea, in conjunction with his pit wall, that later switched it to a single stop.
“It was the extra tyre wear that they’ve lost, perhaps several hundred grams per tyre, with the fact that they didn’t make a second stop and put on a fresh set, which has brought them in underweight.
“Combined with, the team think, changing the car set-up pretty radically between Friday (when they abandoned some of the upgraded parts and reverted to earlier parts for qualifying and the race).”
On Sunday night, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff offered his reaction to the disqualification.
"If the stewards deem it to be a breach of regulations, then it was what it is,” he said.
"We have to learn from that and as a team, there's more positives today obviously for George, but that's a massive blow to a driver whose childhood dream is to be winning these races that it's probably taken away.
"But he's gonna win many more."
Wolff added: "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. 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."
Thoughts on the race result? Let us know in the comments.
Topics: Mercedes, Formula 1, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton
Jack Kenmare