George Russell had impressively used a one-stop strategy to narrowly beat two-stopping team-mate Lewis Hamilton to victory at Spa-Francorchamps before his Mercedes car was disqualified after failing a post-race weight race; Max Verstappen beat Lando Norris to fourth to increase title lead
Sunday 28 July 2024 23:21, UK
George Russell lost what had been a remarkable but ultimately fleeting win in the Belgian GP to team-mate Lewis Hamilton after his Mercedes car failed a post-race weight check.
Little over an hour after Russell had taken the chequered flag a mere half a second ahead of Hamilton on an unlikely one-stop strategy after a dramatic race to the finish between the Mercedes team-mates, the FIA's technical delegate reported that Russell's car had been found to be underweight during his regular post-race checks.
Stewards later confirmed that to be the case and issued a disqualification for Russell's car due to a breach of F1's technical regulations.
Hamilton therefore inherited the win, his second in the last three races and record-extending 105th overall in F1, with McLaren's Oscar Piastri moving into second and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc completing the revised top-three in third.
Max Verstappen took fourth, one place ahead of title rival Lando Norris, with Carlos Sainz sixth and Sergio Perez seventh after another difficult race from the front row in the second Red Bull.
Although Russell's late disqualification denied resurgent Mercedes a first one-two finish in almost three years, the fact they still won the race with Hamilton represented their third triumph in the last four races having previously gone 19 months without a single win.
McLaren and Red Bull had again been tipped as the pre-race favourites despite a rain-hit qualifying and a penalty for Verstappen having mixed up the top of the grid, but Mercedes impressively emerged as the team to beat in the dry thanks to a storming start from third by Hamilton and then a bold strategy call by "tyre whisperer" Russell.
With long-time leader Hamilton stopping for tyres twice and Russell only once, the divergent strategies saw the Mercedes team-mates run first and second into the tense closing stages with the latter gaining track position but on tyres which were 16 laps older.
But Russell, who had called for the one-stop strategy midway through on team radio as he attempted to improve on what had been a distant fifth place, withstood the late sustained pressure from Hamilton to close out what briefly third career win and second in the last four races before his car was found to be non-compliant with the regulations.
Piastri finished on the Mercedes' tail after catching and passing Leclerc, the polesitter, for third late into the closing laps but ultimately ran out of time to go wheel-to-wheel with either of the top two.
The question many - including an initially miffed Hamilton - were wondering after a race in which Russell had spent the opening laps seemingly well of out realistic victory contention when running in fifth place.
It was instead a surging Hamilton who had been the Mercedes driver on the move in the early laps to seemingly position himself as the race's most-likely victor.
Passing Perez for second off the line before the first corner, and then successfully defending against the Red Bull on the slipstream-friendly run up the hill through Eau Rouge to the Les Combes chicane, Hamilton seized the lead from Leclerc down the Kemmel Straight two laps later with the aid of DRS on the Ferrari.
As Hamilton opened a small but handy early lead of around two seconds over Leclerc, Russell pitted early from fifth on lap 10 - one lap earlier than his team-mate - and then quickly overtook the ailing Perez into Les Combes soon after his return to the track.
Significantly. it was then while running third on lap 26 - at the time nine seconds behind leader Hamilton and four-and-a-half behind Piastri - that Russell offered what appeared a bold strategy gamble to the Mercedes pit wall over team radio.
"Think about the one stop," said Russell.
With Hamilton and then Piastri imminently pitting as planned on the conventional two-stopper, Russell duly stayed out and seized a lead which utterly transformed his race.
On 16-lap fresher hard tyres, Hamilton re-emerged and was naturally significantly faster than Russell by up to half a second a lap, although the performance off-set was not such that Hamilton absolutely raced up to the back of his team-mate.
He eventually got there on lap 40 with four laps to go but, seemingly hamstrung by the 'dirty air' being produced by the sister car ahead, could not get close enough to Russell even with DRS to truly attempt a winning overtake on the road.
Norris had started ahead of Piastri but, again, left the first corner behind his team-mate after a mistake on the exit of La Source saw him run out wide and drop behind Russell and Sainz too.
With Verstappen soon on his tail from 11th on the grid, Norris was then undercut by the Dutchman at the first round of stops when Red Bull pitted their driver first on lap 10. McLaren then extended the Briton's stint by five further laps in order to try and get a tyre advantage for later in the race.
As it was, that proved to no avail as Verstappen maintained track position to the end, with the world champion and Norris finishing on Leclerc's tail in what ultimately proved the final podium berth.
Verstappen therefore increases his title lead over Norris by two points to 78 heading into the summer break.
But with Piastri eventually classified second, Red Bull's constructors' title lead over McLaren has been reduced again with the reigning champions' advantage now down to just 42 points.
Behind Sainz in sixth and Perez in seventh, Fernando Alonso took what became a hard-fought eighth for Aston Martin, with Esteban Ocon in ninth for Alpine at the end of a strong weekend for the Haas-bound Frenchman.
Russell's exclusion meant Daniel Ricciardo was promoted into the final points-paying position in 10th.
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23-25, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership - No contract, cancel anytime
