Toto Wolff reacts to George Russell’s Belgian GP disqualification

Toto Wolff says Mercedes will take George Russell’s disqualifation from the F1 Belgian Grand Prix “on the chin”.

Russell was stripped of his victory in Sunday’s race, with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton handed the win instead after a post-race investigation found his car to be under weight. 

After fuel was drained out of Russell’s car and it was weighed again on the FIA scales, his W15 was found to be 1.5kg below the minimum weight requested in TR article 4.1.

“You have to take it on the chin,” Wolff told media including Crash.net at Spa-Francorchamps. “It is what it is, a mistake has happened.

“A 1-2 would have been a great result going into the summer break. It wouldn’t go any better. The positive, the very positive we can take from this race is we had two cars that were the benchmark in this race, with two different strategies.

“Who would have said that a few months ago? That is really good to see.”

Asked if there was anything damaged on Russell’s car that could have knocked the weight down, Wolff replied: “No. You expect loss of rubber, maybe more, but it’s no excuse.

“We have to learn from that, and as a team, given there are more positives to take, for George, but that’s a massive blow for a driver when his childhood dream is to winning these races, then to be told it’s taken away. But he's going to win many more.”

Hamilton’s victory means he now has two wins in three races, having waited 945 days to end his drought at the British Grand Prix earlier this month.

For Mercedes, it marks the German manufacturer’s third win in the last four rounds.