Hamilton’s shock Belgian GP win and Russell disqualification explained

Mercedes’ delight at a surprise 1-2 at the Belgian Grand Prix quickly turned to anguish after George Russell was disqualified from a hard-fought win.

Mercedes winning a Formula 1 race is no longer the absurd fantasy it was a few months ago but its initial one-two in Spa was still unexpected.

The shock value of that was quickly surpassed when the stewards threw winner Russell out of the race just hours after the flag, ensuring team-mate Lewis Hamilton won after all.

We explain where Mercedes' pace came from and why Russell was disqualified.

0:00 Two big surprises
0:40 What doomed Russell
3:37 Russell's ludicrous strategy
4:59 McLaren falls just short
6:22 Red Bull's stalled victory bid
8:08 Leclerc was overachieving

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[aizuddinfahmi]

No wonder Toto didn't have the slightest bit of happiness when George crossed the finished line. He knew one of his engineers fucked up George's car.

[rafaelm]

Toto had a straight face when GR crossed the finished line. I think he already knew it but didn't want to spoil the moment for GR. that was so unfortunate

[MrSpeedyAce]

Toto definitely kicked someone’s ass after the race

[jonathankfouri]

1.5kg is WILD. Thats a lot of weight by F1 standards honestly

[Mechanical-Animal]

Hamilton was upset because his team didn't tell him that George wasn't pitting and he was way back told to be racing Piastri and Leclerc.

[patrickdaly]

Bizarre lack of attention to detail by Mercedes. Would they have assumed they could gain that by picking up rubber at the end?

[thewatermelons]

I’m not sure what Scott has against Piastri, he made up 3 places and says a near miss but Norris dropped multiple places but doesn’t mention how that’s going effect his championship charge

[legoferrari]

Some other notes here: Robert Kubica at the Hungaroring in 2006 was the last driver who had been disqualified via an underweight chassis, so this was quite a serious blunder.

As to why an underweight car matters, not only does the weight difference mean that he would gain time over his opposition, it would've also meant the amount of wear on the tyres would be reduced, which might've contributed to Russell's one-stopper working out so well to finish 1st on the road.

[justinm.]

That probably explains the 2 things I was thinking about:
1) Toto had a deadpan expression after Russell crossed the finish line
2) How Russell managed to keep Hamilton behind...I guess he was using more fuel to do just that, as well as having a lighter car, otherwise Hamilton would've got past him a lot sooner & easily

[yammt]

Damn... That explains why Toto was stone-faced when George crossed the line.

[ELSTERLING]

One of the funnier things about the Red Bull result is that Perez being up the field for once meant he constantly slowed Verstappen by providing DRS to Verstappen's rivals.

[betterchapter]

George - “We couldn’t even of dreamt of a 1-2 this morning”
FIA - “Wasn’t part of the script mate”

[KLM--vmmp]

It seems like people don’t realise how being 1.5 KG less than everybody significantly affects the overall performance of the car. Seeing comments here and there saying that the FIA makes a big deal out of this and it is unfair.. Just to clarify, this amount of weight removed makes the car about 0, 15 to 0, 20 seconds quicker than everyone else’s pace per lap. That translates roughly being 6-7 seconds faster due to less weight in 44 laps. If you add those seconds on Russell’s race, he would be in 4th or 5th place at the end, which would make a lot more sense with that bold strategy move. Tsunoda and Magnussen also followed a one stop strategy but their outcome was nowhere near as successful as Russell’s race. So yeah the DNF is absolutely justified. F1 has very small margins, and not being disqualified would be borderline unfair for the rest of the grid.

[Slinkynx]

I like this new narrator on the channel. Not too loud, doesn't take gasping breaths every 5 seconds, cool calm speaking. Nice.

[NicotineRosberg]

If u told me in Bahrain that Mercedes would be serial winners again I wouldn't have believed you

[paulieshnbi]

Toto’s facial expressions and reaction to George Russell crossing the line and supposedly "winning" the Belgian GP was a tell tale sign that Toto knew that win was illegal

[Aaron-isxo]

No ones gonna mention how the team told the FIA that they drained the fuel when in fact that had not.

[Coconutscott]

That is brutal for George, but thems the rules...

[jossym]

Finding it odd that so many are proclaiming Russell's race as some kind of 'mega drive' - he was absolutely nowhere for 2/3's of it and had nothing to lose by gambling on a 1 stop and throwing a double 6. And every driver on the grid has remarked that the tyres didn't degrade anywhere near what everyone expected them to which makes a mockery of suddenly anointing him as the 'tyre whisperer'. Not to mention he was driving a car a couple of kg's underweight which is a huge advantage around a circuit like Spa where you're on full throttle for 70% of the lap. It turned out track position was key and he was handed it in strategy to the detriment of his team mate who had earned it on merit.

[freakysquirrel]

Considering 1.5 kg roughly equals 0.15 seconds of lap time, it doesn't surprise me that much that George was able to hold off Lewis. Still sad, he did a good job preserving the tires.