Mercedes F1 set to take George Russell disqualification ‘on the chin’
28th July 2024Mercedes F1 Team Principal, Toto Wolff says the team needs to take George Russell’s disqualification ‘on the chin’ after the breach voids their 1-2 finish at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Feature image credit: Mercedes F1
Russell took the chequered flag as the race winner at Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps, just ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton. The 26-year-old temporarily led a 1-2 finish for Mercedes and secured his third career victory and his second of the season, before his disqualification.
However, following post-race scrutineering, it was found that his #63 car was found to be underweight by the FIA Technical Delegate, Jo Bauer.
The matter was quickly referred to the stewards of which he was deemed that Russell’s car had breached the technical regulations, Article 4.1, and he was disqualified from the race classification.
After the disqualification was declared, Wolff released a statement via the team’s official X channel, he said:
“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.”
Including the win in Belgium this weekend, it means Mercedes have secured three wins in the last four races of the 2024 campaign.
Their first came from George Russell, in Austria, followed by Lewis Hamilton’s emotional victory at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.
Despite an untimely disqualification as the sport and the team head into the annual two-week summer shutdown, Wolff was still able to pick out the positives.
“We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies,” Wolff continued. “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.”
Read more Formula 1 here:
- George Russell disqualified from Belgian GP for underweight car
- Russell at risk of punishment for technical infringement after Belgian GP
- Russell controls his way to Belgian GP F1 victory
- Tyre Strategies: two-stop remains preferrable for F1 Belgian GP
- Zhou given 3-place grid penalty for impeding Verstappen in Belgian GP qualifying
- Leclerc takes Belgian GP pole despite Verstappen quickest in qualifying
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Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
Kamron Kent
Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
