It seemed like Mercedes was going to ride into this summer break into a high, getting a podium in the last six straight races, and wins in Austria and the United Kingdom (Great Britain). Shortly after crossing the line and the celebrations started for Mercedes, the FIA started to do their checks and started to weigh the cars. In Formula 1 all cars have to meet the minimum weight before and after the race (including fuel) , the minimum weight is 798.0kg, after draining 2.8 liters of fuel, (the car was not completely drained) the FIA re-weighed the car and found that the Mercedes of George Russell was 796.5kg. 1.5kg below the minimum weight, Mercedes was able to witness the FIA, recalibrate the weight system and was found still under the minimum weight (796.5kg), the FIA sent the issue to the stewards and shortly after the stewards ultimately decided to disqualify the 63 of George Russell who had his second win of the season, taken away in just a matter of minutes. Lewis Hamilton was awarded the win by finishing in second, with Piastri in second and Charles Leclerc finishing out the podium.
Toto Wolff , Team Principal and CEO issued a statement across Mercedes social media pages which you can read below.
“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 shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory. “
Toto Wolff
Team Principal & CEO
Toto is 100% right, 2 months ago if you would have told me that Mercedes would get six straight podiums and 3 wins before the summer break, i might have called you crazy, but Mercedes has absolutely turned their season around, we could potentially be having a four way battle for the constructors between Mercedes, Mclaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.
Now let’s start talking about the race itself, i just wanted to get the elephant out of the room. Mercedes were able to surprise the field by giving two different strategies to their two drivers with Hamilton going for the 2 stop race and Russell with the one stopper, being the tire whisper today stretching a set of hard tyres for over 30 laps, Hamilton showed extreme race pace being able to close the gap to Russell to under 2 seconds with the laps winding down and Piastri breathing down both of their necks, Piastri definitely saw the opportunity to make it two race weekends straight with a win in his pocket.
Charles Leclerc started this race on pole with Hamilton right behind and was able to get off the line really well but the Mercedes was just too fast for Leclerc and the Ferrari being able to pass them in two laps. Despite most of the field opting for the 2 stopper, George Russell went into the pits at Lap 10, nursing hard tyres for 34 laps around the 6.4mi track.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull decided on Friday to take a new electrical component in the car which forced them to take a 10 place grid penalty which forced him to start 11th but was ultimately able to salvage huge points for Red Bull finishing in fourth, with Norris breathing down his neck for the whole 44 laps, finishing his day in fifth.
Carlos Sainz and Norris good friend, finished his day in sixth. Mexico’s Sergio Perez finishing his day in seventh, in a day where he desperately needed to have a good race, unfortunately saw him getting overtaken by Sainz and with rumors of Red Bull sacking Perez, this is not the race he wanted to have. Multiple questions for Perez and Red Bull will go into this summer break with multiple cameras showing Christian Horner and Daniel Ricciardo , former Red Bull driver with 8 career wins were speaking after his P10 performance at Belgium. Can this maybe be early confirmation that Daniel Ricciardo will be Red Bull’s newest driver, plus is it just a coincidence that he went home with Verstappen on a helicopter with tomorrow (Monday) a supposed meeting between Checo and Mario is gonna take place? I’m not sure but i will definitely make sure you guys know about it, as soon as i do.
Fernando Alonso and former teammate Esteban Ocon finished 8th and 9th. Lance Stroll in the other Aston Martin finished his day in 11th with Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly right behind in 12th and 13th. With Kevin Magnussen who is getting replaced at HAAS at the end of the year finished in 14th.
And another day with no points for the new rebranded Kick Sauber Team with Bottas ending his day in 15th, Yuki Tsunoda, another strong contender for the second Red Bull seat, finished in 16th with American born driver Logan Sargeant finishing in 17th and Nico Hulkenberg ending his day as the final car running in 18th. George Russell got demoted to 19th after his disqualification and Zhou Ghanyu was today’s only DNF with a hydraulic issue.
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