George Russell’s Belgian GP Disqualification Explained

George Russell won the 2024 F1 Belgian Grand Prix on track, but the Mercedes-AMG driver was later thrown out of the race. But why did he get disqualified?

Video Transcription

 So, when I did my review of the race for the Belgian Grand Prix, I said that George Russell did an incredible job to win, and that my next video would be about how he managed to win. But, turns out I was wrong, because my next video is this one, which is how he’s managed to be disqualified. This is unbelievable, I never saw this coming.

But yes, it’s official now, as I record this. Formula 1 has just confirmed that George Russell has been disqualified from the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix and Sir Lewis Hamilton has been promoted to win his fifth Belgian Grand Prix. This is incredible. I never saw this coming, like I said, but how has this happened?

How has he managed to be disqualified? Well, the simple fact of the matter is is that his car was underweight, and if anybody, you know, if you know anything about Formula One, you know that lighter is better. Lighter is faster, so therefore it’s better. So if your car is light, it will go faster. There have been times in the past where, you know, teams have been running cars where they’re overweight, and because of that they’ve been at a performance of In Formula 1, there is a overall weight limit of both the car and the driver that has to be adhered to.

That is 796. 5 kilograms. Sorry, that is the weight of George Russell’s car. So the actual weight that is allowed is 798 kilograms because he was one and a half kilograms underweight. So basically that’s what you see when drivers are. After the race or after any kind of session and they’re being weighed they are being weighed separately themselves So with their all with their overalls on with their helmet and also the car is weighed, too With that there is also things like fuel samples and stuff like that that have to be taken to see whether The fuel is legal.

And also you have to provide enough fuel for that too. Sir Lewis Hamilton back in Spain, Spanish Grand Prix qualifying in 2012 was disqualified because his car could not provide a big enough fuel sample. So he lost pole position to none other than Pastor Maldonado that day. That was a weird Grand Prix.

They’ll never see anything like that again, but yeah, that’s the rabbit hole. If you want to go down that, but staying with this rabbit hole. Yeah, and this is the thing some people may say oh disqualified for that. That’s really harsh Well, effectively the car is illegal, but it’s like having an engine that is a different specification.

So what is allowed? It’s like having a front wing that flexes too much, you know, like Red Bull were protesting McLaren for it It’s like any anything that you like having tires that are too good How about by having fuel that is of a mixture that’s not allowed and a chemical that’s not allowed either You know and it can be very rightfully argued that those You know, those one and a half kilograms could have been vital to George Russell holding on to win the race.

It’s irrelevant that he was actually his teammate that he was fighting. You know, because of that, it meant that, you know, he could have gone faster and could have held on to the position. You know, it could absolutely be argued that. So why Russell’s car was underweight is a question for Mercedes. We don’t know why.

We just know that it was, you know, but we also know that Hamilton and with his car, was way too and he was legal so why russell’s car was different i don’t know i don’t know if hamilton has got some sort of different upgrade package i don’t know if russell had an upgrade that hamilton doesn’t or hamilton had an upgrade that george doesn’t i have no idea we don’t know there’s going to be some fallout from this this is uh this like i said this is just a breaking news story that has come to us now but the long and short of it is is that george russell Has been disqualified, thrown out of the Belgian Grand Prix.

This is a standard kind of punishment. We haven’t seen it for a long time, but it’s something that’s been in Formula 1 for a very long time. Way longer than I’ve been following, probably 25, 30 years, you know. Even longer, probably. The result of that means, of course, Lewis Hamilton wins. The Belgian Grand Prix, the Belgian Grand Prix victory in his career.

He draws level with Ayrton Senna, his idol, with five overall victories in the Belgian Grand Prix and one behind the overall record holder Michael Schumacher on six. But that’ll be a little consolation to him. It also means that Mercedes in their hunt to get third, second in the in the Constructors Championship is severely dented as well.

We have Oscar Piastri going up to second place. In third is Charles Leclerc. Getting a podium for Ferrari, fourth place Max Verstappen, fifth Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, sixth Sergio Perez, seventh Fernando Alonso, eighth, ninth place goes to Esteban Ocon in the Alpine and Daniel Ricciardo gets a solitary point for Ferrari.

in 10th place. So yeah, guys, what do you think about this? Is it right? Is it fair? Does Formula 1 need to look at its rules? I think this is absolutely fair. If you, you know, you, you’ve given it, you give an inch, they take a mile. Unfortunately, Mercedes have taken one half kilograms off the weight limit for George Russell’s car.

Why they’ve done this. I don’t know. There’s going to be a lot of internal investigation. There’s going to be a lot of fallout from this as well. If we’re, you know, if We thought that Mercedes were heading into summer break on a high. It’s very much a bittersweet days for the silver arrows, but yeah, let us know your thoughts in the comments below and for much more breaking Formula One news, comment, like, subscribe, follow, do all that good stuff and ring the bell as well to, uh, to get more Formula One content from the F1Chronicle.