Spare A Thought For George Russell

How does it feel to win a race only to then realise, not long after you have stepped onto the top step of the podium and sprayed the celebratory champagne that you didn’t exactly win the race? Truth be told, George Russell and Spa-Francorchamps, home to the Belgian Grand Prix have quite an equation of sorts. Well, that is if you have thought about it like that.

But before we dive into the events as they unfolded at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix, it’s important to reflect what happened here at Spa back in 2021 and what impact it had on George Russell.

In what could only be described as a massively rain-truncated Belgian Grand Prix of 2021, George Russell, then with Williams, put his car on second at the conclusion of the race. And a race it certainly was dubbed despite the overall distance covered by cars being no more than 6.88 kilometres.

In what were barely raceable conditions, Spa being utterly riddled by wet weather, Verstappen was the first to cross the checkered flag only for George Russell in his Williams to come home in second. Previously during qualifying, Russell had shown enough speed in his FW 43B to secure P2 ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.

But while the Briton got a maiden F1 career podium, he may have thought about a maiden win here at some point. Who knew that it was to happen three years later in 2024 at a contest that shall now perhaps be dubbed slightly dramatic given the huge turnaround in actual result post the completion of the podium ceremony?

While George Russell did everything he could- persisting with a long stint that saw him cover a third of the race on the set of hard tyres, nursing those tyres excellently until the checkered flag and in the process of competing demonstrating a master class in defensive driving, the race win wasn’t to be.

That was despite him being the first F1 driver to cross the checkered flag at Belgium upon the completion of the 44 laps.

With an enquiry made to the FIA stewards not too long after the race was over with George Russell still the designated winner, it turned out that the victorious Mercedes car in P1 was around 1.5 kilo lighter.

Resultantly, the man from King’s Lynn, who had driven with all his skill and might defending from the master Lewis Hamilton himself would see the seven-time world champion being handed the race win.

Surely, George Russell can’t be blamed for what his Mercedes team dubbed a ‘genuine error.’

Competing at a challenging circuit like Spa-Francorchamps is, in itself, an arduous task. Here was a young man in whose hands rests the future of the Mercedes team, defying arguably the greatest Mercedes driver as on date: Sir Lewis Hamilton.

To add insult to injury, within a few hours basis the FIA stewards’ submission given their findings of the Mercedes car #63, George Russell was dubbed disqualified from the said Grand Prix having been a race winner just a while earlier.

One can’t put it aptly other than saying that you have feel for the young driver, who’s committed to the Silver Arrows for a long-term future. There is nothing that the driver did wrong on his part- did he? As a result, Russell’s tally of F1 podiums this year still stands at two, having earned one apiece at Austria and Canada earlier.