At 5.50pm, approximately two hours after the checkered flag declared George Russell the winner of the Belgian Grand Prix, an email was sent by the technical stewards informing that during the technical checks the number 63 car had been found to be 1.5 kg under the minimum limit imposed by the regulations, 798 kg.
The standard practice is for the report made by technical delegate Jo Bauer to be forwarded to the sports commissioners, who are responsible for verifying that there are no mitigating circumstances as per article 35.3 of the sporting regulations: “except in the case where the lack of weight is due to the accidental loss of a component of the car”. This was not the case with Russell.
George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton: then the exclusion of the winner for the underweight W15
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
But how is it possible that the Mercedes technicians made such a gross error? The paradox is that what deprived Russell of what would have been his second success of the season was the decision that had led him to victory.
“The one-stopper probably condemned us,” admitted Toto Wolff, “but that’s no excuse, we made a mistake.” Russell completed 34 laps on a set of hard tyres, almost double the number completed by Hamilton. The extra 126 kilometres covered by Russell meant more wear on the tyres, and a one-stopper strategy was not on the teams’ radar before the start, so it was unlikely to factor into the engineers’ weight calculations.
There is also another aspect that played against Russell: at Spa the drivers do not complete the lap of honor. Immediately after crossing the finish line they enter the pit lane at the Source curve, driving along the pit lane in the opposite direction to the direction of travel to stop the cars under the podium.
Usually during the lap of honor, the drivers deliberately follow trajectories different from the racing ones, passing where the ‘murbles’ are deposited, that is, pieces of rubber that detach from the tires. It is estimated that the rubber pieces collected during the lap of honor increase the weight of a rear tire by 400 grams, 300 for the front ones. An overall weight that, combined with the natural wear due to the 18 extra laps, most likely condemned Russell.
Totto Wolff, Mercedes
Photo by: Erik Junius
“There are obviously a lot of positives from George’s race,” Wolff concluded, “but it’s a big blow for him to lose a win, especially on a track where everyone dreams of winning. Losing a one-two is frustrating and we can only apologise to George. Lewis was the fastest of all the two-stoppers and he’s a deserving winner.”
“We had a car that was the benchmark today with two different strategies. Only a few months ago, it would have been inconceivable. We will go on holiday with the positive trend of three wins in the last four races, we will try to get back on track after the break with the aim of maintaining this positive trend.”
How the choice of single parking came about
Before the start, none of the top teams considered the possibility of completing the 44-lap race with just one pit stop, with analysis of data collected on Friday indicating that the single-stop race was about eight seconds slower. Russell completed his first pit stop on lap 10 (on a set of hard tyres) to maintain sixth place, which then became fifth after Sainz’s first stop.
When the second pit stops began, inaugurated by Leclerc, Russell gave a crucial input to the team, asking where he would finish the race if he came into the pits for the second stop. The answer was “fifth place”, and the exact same input came when George asked what would happen if he stayed out without making a second tyre change. According to Mercedes’ simulations (based on Friday data) Russell would have had nothing to lose by staying out anyway. George then continued on.
George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1: Podium joy short-lived…
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
As his closest rivals completed their second pit stops, Russell took the lead (lap 31) and from then on also enjoyed the benefits that come with being able to race in clean air.
“At a certain point I asked myself if I was forgetting something,” George admitted, “I saw that lap after lap my times were improving, and even though Oscar and Lewis were gaining ground, my performance was good.” Russell hit an ‘all in’, but there were obviously also technical considerations behind his bet, which at least under the checkered flag was a winner.
The data collected in the long runs on Friday did not find confirmation on a 12 degrees warmer asphalt on which the race was held. The temperature had an impact, but it is also worth noting that no team before the race had finished a long run on hard tyres.
Only Red Bull (but in the FP1 session with the track not rubberized) had completed laps with ‘white’ tires, all the other teams had preferred to keep the hards for the race having only two sets available. And it was during the race that it emerged that the feared graining was not a threat as expected, the first signs came when some drivers asked to be able to extend their stint, messages that went against the grain compared to what is usually heard on team radio.
“At the end of both the first and second stints when I stopped I still had rubber,” Hamilton stressed, but in Lewis’ case the second stop was forced by where to respond to the attempted undercut by Leclerc and Piastri.
Hamilton’s race was flawless both for the determination shown at the start towards Perez and for the intensity of the pace confirmed in all 44 laps completed. On the track he was beaten by five tenths Russell, then, three hours after the checkered flag came the news of Russell’s exclusion which guaranteed Hamilton his 105th victory in Formula 1.
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