George Russell described his disqualification from the Belgian Grand Prix as “heartbreaking” after seeing victory taken away from him after the race.
Mercedes originally secured a 1-2 with Russell pulling off an audacious one-stop strategy to beat Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri in a thrilling finish. Post-race scrutineering then found Russell’s car to be 1.5 kg underweight and, as that is a technical infringement, it automatically leads to a disqualification from the results.
“Heartbreaking…” Russell said. “We came in 1.5 kg 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.”
Speaking before he was disqualified, Russell said the decision to one-stop was a spontaneous one that had not been considered ahead of the race.
“We spoke so much this morning about the two-stop, the three-stop, but suddenly the tires, the car felt really, really good. I got into this groove, and especially when I got into the lead, there were no back markers in front, no other cars in front — it kind of felt like driving a simulator. It was quite weird.
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“I was looking at the gap to Lewis and the rate he was catching me, and I just thought there’s no reason why we can’t stay out here and do this one stop and try and make it work.”
Russell’s disqualification is the first time a driver has lost a victory for a technical infringement after the race since Michael Schumacher at Spa-Francorchamps 30 years ago, and is one the team did not dispute.
“We have to take our disqualification on the chin,” team principal Toto Wolff said. “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 apologize 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.”