George Russell was disqualified post-race last night after winning the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps for an initial Mercedes-Benz one-two. His car was found to be underweight following the race and hence he was disqualified.

This has led to his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, being declared the winner after he crossed the finish line in just 0,526 seconds off the pace.

Oscar Piastri, who won the Hungarian Grand Prix is now second, while Charles Leclerc finds himself on the podium.

George Russell. Picture: F1.

The Mercedes-Benz team principal, Toto Wolff, apologised to Russell for the mistake they made as a team, and also lauded Hamilton for his performance. “We have to take our disqualification on the chin,” said Wolff.

“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 one-two is frustrating and we can only apologise to George who drove such a strong race.”

Lewis Hamilton. Picture: F1.

“Lewis is of course promoted to P1 – he was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner,” Wolff added.

“Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend. We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies. Only a few months ago, that would have been inconceivable.

‘We will look to come back after shutdown rejuvenated’

“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.”

The circuit will be enjoying a nearly month-long break before heading to Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix on 25 August.

OFM Sport/Morgan Piek cg/mvh