George Russell has been disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix after his Mercedes W15 was below the 798kg minimum weight, handing victory to team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Russell took a sensational win at Spa with a well-worked one-stop strategy, but following the race the FIA Technical Delegate reported that while Russell’s car was initially weighted it met the minimum weight of 798.0 kg. However, when “fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed” to get the required sample, the car was weighed again and “the weight was 796.5 kg… 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requested in TR Article 4.1”. 

The matter was referred to the Race Stewards and after hearing from a Mercedes team representative that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team, the Stewards determined that Article 4.1 of the FIA Formula 1 Technical Regulations had been breached and Russell was disqualified from the race result. 

The ruling means that Lewis Hamilton inherits his 105^th win in Formula 1, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri moving up to second place. Charles Leclerc claims a 36^th career podium finish with P3. With the rest of the field also moving up a place, RB’s Daniel Ricciardo claims his third points finish of the season with 10^th place.