"We have to take our disqualification on the chin," says Mercedes boss Toto Wolff as George Russell is disqualified from today's Belgian Grand Prix

With Mercedes clearly not intending to appeal today's decision by the Spa stewards, Toto Wolff issued a brief statement.

"We have to take our disqualification on the chin," he said. "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 is of course promoted to P1," he added, "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," the Austrian continued. "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 had 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."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by NS Biker, 30/07/2024 1:04

" Back a few (too many) years ago, Minardi got caught out having Justin Wilson's car under weight during qualifying. They had set it up for Wet or Intermediate tyres but swapped to slicks at the last minute. He was the only one to get out on slicks and set the fastest time. Problem was the slicks were lighter than the wets they had adjusted the balast for. DSQ.
Current 2023 regs state that car weight will be determined with dry weather tyres and not wets.
What caught out Mercedes is (in hind sight) quite logical and predictable. Being Spa, there is no opportunity to pick up several kilos of marbles as is done at most other tracks."

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2. Posted by Wokingchap, 29/07/2024 11:40

"I find it unbelievable, stupid even, that the team (one of my favourites)..... with their level of experience... could allow this weight loss to go unnoticed."

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3. Posted by dejan, 29/07/2024 0:35

"Most (all) of the cars get weighed this is why drivers holding all of their equipment line up at scales post-race. The minimum car weight includes the driver and drivers' weight changes during the race due to liquid loss. I remember reading that back in the day Senna would lose 5-6kg during some of the races."

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4. Posted by Tyrbiter, 28/07/2024 20:16

"@Laps Lewis's car will be heavier because the tyres have done fewer laps and lost less rubber.

George one-stopped and hence his second set of tyres did lose sufficient rubber to take the total weight below 798kg.

Imagine an 80s F1 race with a car weighing that much, it would be 20 laps down by the chequered flag."

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5. Posted by Laps, 28/07/2024 19:08

"Presume that Lewis and George have identical cars?? So what happens now? Of course it’s likely that Lewis’s car is under parc ferme so cannot be weighed. Interesting!
L"

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Toto Wolff reacts to Russell's disqualification

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