Mercedes has released a statement following the disqualification of George Russell from the Belgian Grand Prix for being underweight. Russell was expunged from the Spa results after being found to have been 1.5kg under the minimum weight of 798kg in the usual post-race scrutineering checks, having defeated Lewis Hamilton by less than a second on a one-stop strategy. Hamilton was promoted to a 105th career win with Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc completing the podium, with Wolff also offering a theory behind the disqualification of tyre wear and the lack of an in-lap at Spa. Reacting to the disqualification, the first of Russell's grand prix career, Wolff insisted the team would "take it on the chin."
Mercedes Wolff statement in full
"We have to take our disqualification on the chin. 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 1-2 is frustrating and we can only apologise to George who drove such a strong race. "Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner. "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 head into the summer break having won three of the past four races. "We will look to come back after the shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory."
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