Christian Horner points finger of blame after George Russell stripped of Belgian GP win

George Russell noticed his Belgian Grand Prix win stripped after his Mercedes automobile was disqualified for being beneath the minimal weight requirement, with Lewis Hamilton promoted to first as a substitute

Christian Horner laid the blame for George Russell’s disqualification from the Belgian Grand Prix squarely on the door of Mercedes’ strategists.

Russell thought he had received Sunday’s race, forward of Silver Arrows team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The 26-year-old deployed a shock one-stop technique which allowed him to maneuver up from his beginning spot of sixth.

However following the race and the rostrum celebrations, Russell’s automobile was reported to the stewards for being underweight. His automobile was 1.5kg shy of the minimal requirement, with the stewards duly disqualifying him.

Some pundits have steered that the choice to go for a one-stop technique meant that Russell misplaced extra tyre rubber than anticipated, resulting in his low weight. Whereas Purple Bull boss Horner sympathised with the Brit, he insisted his Mercedes crew ought to have seen the problem coming.

He advised Sky Sports activities: “I am positive that you’d have misplaced effectively over a kilo of rubber. We noticed that on Friday. However it’s important to carry sufficient gas to do the pattern in any other case you are utilizing gas as ballast. So actually unhappy information for George however clearly a mistake of their calculations.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff conceded his aspect had made a significant error when it got here to Russell’s automobile. Whereas he was completely satisfied to see Hamilton choose up his second win in three races, Wolff may solely go on his commisserations to Russell.

“We’ve got to take our disqualification on the chin. We’ve got clearly made a mistake and wish to make sure we be taught from it. We are going to go away, consider what occurred and perceive what went fallacious,” he stated.

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“To lose a 1-2 is irritating and we are able to solely apologise to George who drove such a robust race. Lewis is in fact promoted to P1; he was the quickest man on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.

“Regardless of the disqualification, there are a lot of positives we are able to take from this weekend. We had a automobile that was the benchmark in at the moment’s race throughout two totally different methods. Just a few months in the past, that might have been inconceivable.

“We head into the summer time break having received three of the previous 4 races. We are going to look to come back again after shutdown rejuvenated and with the purpose of sustaining our constructive trajectory.”

Russell in the meantime was left heartbroken on the method of his disqualification. The 26-year-old insisted he nonetheless ‘took delight’ from coming dwelling first, regardless of seeing his win stripped from him.

Russell tweeted: “Heartbreaking… We got here in 1.5kg underweight and have been disqualified from the race. We left all of it on the observe at the moment and I take delight in crossing the road first. There shall be extra to come back.”

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