George Russell won praise for his role in an audacious strategy which put him in front at the Belgian Grand Prix.
It also won him the race – for around two-and-a-half hours, until he was disqualified. A post-race investigation discovered his Mercedes was one-and-a-half kilograms under the minimum weight limit. That’s an infringement of the technical regulations and the penalty was never likely to be anything less than disqualification.After the race Mercedes admitted they had suspicions that Russell’s strategy had contributed to his disqualification. While their closest rivals all made two pit stops, Russell gambled on making it to the end with just one.
“It’s really tough for George to have been disqualified from the win after such an impressive drive,” said Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. “He did a brilliant job to hang onto the tyres and defend to the finish.
“We don’t yet understand why the car was underweight following the race but will investigate thoroughly to find the explanation. We expect that the loss of rubber from the one stop was a contributing factor, and we’ll work to understand how it happened.”
Tyres shed rubber as they wear, forming the off-line ‘marbles’ which drivers are at pains to avoid. The loss of rubber means they become lighter, which is a factor the teams have to take into account in order to ensure they stay above the minimum weight limit.
None of this is new to teams, so Mercedes’ suspicions about the role Russell’s strategy played in his disqualification may seem surprising. After all, Russell used a one-stop strategy in the Belgian Grand Prix last year, so surely Mercedes should have been alert to the potential implications of doing so again?
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This isn’t the first disqualification for a Mercedes car in recent history. Last year Lewis Hamilton lost his second place finish in the United States Grand Prix when his car’s plank failed a post-race thickness check.
Mercedes ran a new floor specification on their cars during Friday practice. They weren’t happy with its performance, so reverted to a previous version from Saturday. There was no dry running on the second day, however. No team had a complete picture of how their car would perform, but Mercedes’ was potentially less clear.
A complication all teams had to get their heads around was the track surface at Spa, half of which had been re-laid since the previous year. Degradation appeared to be high on Friday, then a solid day of rain on Saturday removed all the rubber which had accumulated.
Teams therefore expected a harsh surface on Sunday would which subject the tyres to high strain. A two-stop strategy looked like the way to go and Mercedes thought any deviation from that would involve more stops, not fewer.
But as the race unfolded and the surface rubbered-in, teams discovered the tyres were lasting longer than expected. Russell hesitantly began to consider a one-stop strategy even though it went against what they’d discussed beforehand.
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“It was quite back and forth over the course of three laps,” he said. “It’s difficult because when you feel something in your gut, you have to go with it. But when every single driver and team is pitting to go on to a different alternative strategy, and after all the data we had on Friday suggested a one-stop was not even close to being viable, you do kind of question that a couple of times, thinking, ‘are we missing something here?’ Like, why isn’t anybody else doing this?”
Mercedes did not run the hard tyres during practice, meaning they lacked crucial information on how it performed. McLaren and Ferrari did not run it either. Among the front-running teams only one did: Red Bull.
After Russell’s disqualification, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner was in no doubt the rubber Russell lost on his one-stop strategy could have brought that car’s weight down sufficiently for him to fall foul of the minimum weight limit.
“Absolutely, I’m sure that you would have lost well over a kilo of rubber,” he told Sky. “We saw that on Friday.”
Only one other driver one-stopped today. That was Fernando Alonso, who also ran the hard tyres in his final stint, though switched to them three laps later than Russell. He had run the hard tyres in practice, however, so Aston Martin would have known more about its wear rate.
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So Russell was the only driver attempting a one-stop strategy with such limited knowledge about the tyre’s performance. Had Mercedes realised what trouble he was in, they might have warned him to moderate his pace, but he appeared to receive no such message.
The FIA’s explanation for Russell’s disqualification revealed the interesting detail that his car was on the minimum weight limit of 798 kilograms before its fuel was removed. But the regulations state it must pass the minimum weight check “without fuel”, and once Russell’s W15 was drained its weight fell to 796.5kg.
“You have to carry enough fuel to be able to do the sample, otherwise you’re using fuel as ballast,” said Horner. “So, really, sad news for George but obviously a mistake in their calculations.”
“We won’t be making any excuses,” said Shovlin. “It is clearly not good enough and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Coming within 12 months of Hamilton’s disqualification in Austin, it was a galling blow for Mercedes. At least on this occasion they had the consolation of Hamilton’s car, which two-stopped to second place, able to inherit the win.
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2024 Belgian Grand Prix
- Belgian GP was “still a win” for Russell despite disqualification
- High plank wear also a factor in Russell’s disqualification, say Mercedes
- Russell is sixth F1 driver to be disqualified after winning a grand prix
- Unheard radio shows why Hamilton missed Russell’s (almost) race-winning strategy
- 2024 Belgian Grand Prix weekend F1 driver ratings
BLS (@brightlampshade)
28th July 2024, 21:20
About the worst time for this to happen (not that there’s a good time to lose a win), got the summer break to stew on the fact. Russel did nothing wrong here yet it’s a fair DSQ. Just sucks.
notagrumpyfan
28th July 2024, 22:04
Mercedes should’ve known about the approximate loss of rubber on his car. I am sure they have models for that, and they surely checked how much Lewis’ hards lost after his middle stint.
Of course an extra stop would drop him to 7th or 8th, but that (and maybe a FLAP) would be better than a DQF.
It feels that they knew about it but hoped that by ‘forgetting’ to drain the car they could escape the penalty. Doing this deliberately would make it even worse though.
Ajaxn
28th July 2024, 22:18
I’m sure Mercedes has enough experience to know there are weight considerations with a one-stop. I think this was Russell’s call, he gambled on saving 20 seconds to catapult him from 6th to 1st. He had track position and that was the extent of his thoughts. if he didn’t have Hamilton behind him, he might have driven offline to pick up the marbles on that last lap. In which case he could have assured himself of a podium.
This is one of those lessons he had to learn the hard way.
Oople ZERO
28th July 2024, 23:10
I think it’s utter tosh for anyone to expect drivers to think about the weight of the car when deciding the number of stops.
Have you ever heard any other driver mention that before over team radio? No.
Because it’s an idiotic thing to expect any driver to think about on top of all the other decisions they have to make.
If Mercedes could project that information, then there should have been an executive overrule to George and explained that to him.
If they didn’t know due to their lack of running on the tyre on Friday, then the DSQ was down to the ignorance of the team, not because of the decision a driver had to make…
Stop trying to find a petty reason to blame the driver.
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 8:23
Blaming Russell. That’s a new one.
And rubber pick up at high speed is also an interesting one. Maybe if you pick the soft tyre marbles, you can go faster afterwards :p
Ajaxn
29th July 2024, 8:38
Corrections.
I have just heard that both drivers wanted to be on a one-stop, and that was the plan going into the race.
Then they had Hamilton go to the two-stop to cover one of the other drivers but left Russell on the one-stop.
This means, right up until the disqualification, Hamilton thought he had been ‘shafted’ by the team. He did all the work to earn the victory and then, it seemed, was undermined by the team to let Russell get a free pass.
You have to wonder if the team realized this was possible when they put Hamilton on the 2-stop, and then later tried to bodge Russell’s car weight when they left fuel in the car for its weight check after declaring they had emptied the car.
Mercedes dodged a bullet, they could so easily have had both cars disqualified. All this because they thought Verstappen had changed to a new engine and would be on a charge through the field.
LOL.
Palaboran
29th July 2024, 10:38
Easy enough for Mercedes to check, weigh new tyres and compare to used tyres ie two stop compared to one stop.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 11:48
Completely agree with that.
Mr. Wolff’s face as Russel crossed the line spoke volumes – and quite a lot of them- , and he immediately started to heap praise on Hamilton, where normally, the winner gets all the attention and talks.
I too have my suspicions about them ‘forgetting’ to drain the fuel as prescribed. Must say I feel that’s well within mr Wolff’s morale.
I also have my doubts about the competence of the FiA, as I think such a find should be instant cause to fully check the other car of the same team as well.
MadMax (@madmax)
29th July 2024, 19:27
all cars were checked.
if it comes to morale then better take a good look on a specific other team. well, before they miraculously lost 0.5s+ of pace advantage – maybe someone took a closer look already. lol.
Steve (@scbriml)
29th July 2024, 17:48
I suspect that late into the race Mercedes probably realised it was going to be very close, if not sure he would be overweight. Wolff’s face at the start of the last lap suggests he already knew.
Nick T.
28th July 2024, 21:29
I couldn’t possibly guess the answer…
I luv chicken
28th July 2024, 22:27
42 is the correct answer.
Mog
29th July 2024, 8:25
According to the mice anyway
Nick T.
29th July 2024, 9:55
All right. Tell you what. I’m thinking Of a number between 1 and 50.
Is it 37?
builtInYorkshire (@olpeculier)
29th July 2024, 10:23
I so wish there was a driver that is a fan of DNA to choose 42 as their number. They would instantly get so many supporters!
Flying Lap
28th July 2024, 21:34
The irony is that the one stop strategy caused the loss of tyre weight. At other circuits Russell might have been able to pick up enough marbles to compensate.
Doh
28th July 2024, 23:07
Great point I wonder if he went wide at turn 1 to collect marbles. If not maybe that coulve been enough. Only needed 350grams per wheels. Being the first car there he would have been able to pick up the most.
On a side note it’s always a shame for the fans at spa that they do no victory lap. There have been other tracks just as long so I don’t see why not. That and for the winning driver it much better for even home viewing to see a cool down/victory lap!
Anthony
29th July 2024, 2:21
Karma is bich . Russell has acted in a passive agressive manner to Hamilton ( see several radio messages in other 2024 races where Russell seems to want to have the team allow him to favor him over his teammate) and Hamilton has been silent about it, taking one for the team he is leaving anyway. Just saying
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
29th July 2024, 10:50
Which?
Doh
29th July 2024, 11:57
He was a bit quiet on radio apparently after the race actually. A bit like turkey 2010
I’m not sure Lewis has it against Lewis but just his teammate… He’s always very vocal and saying favour me let me pass Lewis etc for the team points
Jere (@jerejj)
29th July 2024, 7:36
Doh Simply about the track length, albeit only since 2007.
Doh
29th July 2024, 12:05
Thanks
Matt Clare
29th July 2024, 16:11
I wondered the same thing. Still no excuse for an F1 team, but would a full cool down lap given enough opportunity to collect enough weight in marbles?
Lyndamarks
28th July 2024, 22:15
So now we are going to have teams afraid of trying strategies like this because of the horrid pirelli tires.
They used to be able to run a race without changing tires at all with enough rubber left on them to not be an issue.
It’s pathetic what this once great sport has been turned into.
A car falling below the weight limit because of a one stop strategy wearing horrid pirelli tires is simply pathetic.
Postreader
28th July 2024, 22:27
The other drivers who went for a one-stop strategy didn’t have any issues. I’m sure every team knew beforehand there would be no extra lap to pick up 1-2 kg of rubber and planned their minimum weight accordingly.
Either there was a huge oversight in planning or Mercedes just flew too close to the sun. Nothing else to it.
mystic one (@mysticus)
28th July 2024, 22:41
only alonso did 1 stopper i think. everyone were on 2. also alo did 3 more extra laps. possibly picked up some marbles on the way to finish.
Postreader
29th July 2024, 13:08
The race is in the last lap for everyone once the first place crosses the line so no, Alonso didn’t do any extra laps.
Plus Stroll, Tsunoda, and Magnussen also did one-stoppers.
Postreader
29th July 2024, 13:11
False edit – I see you meant he stopped later than Russel, not that the backmarkers were a few laps down. My bad.
Still, 1.5 kg of degradation in 3 laps is out of cogitation. That would mean losing almost 50% of the tires over the distance Russel ran in them!
Red Pill (@redpill)
29th July 2024, 5:16
Lyndamarks
What happened to Russell had nothing to do with Pirelli, in fact the tires were doing so well under the conditions that it allowed for 1 pitstop instead of the forecasted 2 pitstops. Russell was still racy after so many laps with those tires; granted he also had a lighter car than the drivers behind him.
drmouse (@drmouse)
29th July 2024, 9:00
The car didn’t fall below because of the tyres, it fell below because the team miscalculated. The tyres may have been a factor in this calculation, but every team has to make decisions on the amount of ballast to run, and Mercedes didn’t have enough to keep their car legal on a one stop strategy.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 12:42
Exactly.
All those whatiffs are pointless.
W-K (@w-k)
29th July 2024, 11:04
Have strategies that always run a soft for the last 5 laps. Then you can run the car underweight for most of the race.
Brollachan
28th July 2024, 22:22
I do wonder if Mercedes had allowed Hamilton to pass Russell, allowing GR to save his tyres slightly, would have prevented a DQ.
stefano (@alfa145)
28th July 2024, 23:09
I still find it quite idiotic to weigh cars including the used tires, a method which this episode clearly shows the limits of.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 12:39
The rulebook overflows with rules that are pointless, inconsistent, counter productive and debateable, and almost invariable they are all still worded leaving some room for interpretation.
For this one though, I think it makes perfect sense:
If the rules say your car cannot legally be below a certain weight, than weigh it asap after it has crossed the finish line, to confirm it stuck to the rules at any point during the race.
jamt
28th July 2024, 23:15
Why the car weight is measured with used tyres and not with new ones? It makes not sense at all because with the current set of rules as a car could be run below the weight limit at some point during the race, but still be found within rules after collecting some marbles. Indeed, the tyres are the same for everyone, so makes little sense to account for those in the weight limit. I think this is a bit embarrassing.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th July 2024, 8:20
Yes… after a race at any other track, the winner’s celebrations on the radio are interrupted by a stern voice nagging him to pick up rubber. So all the cars come back carrying all this weight they never raced with.
Why can’t they weigh the cars with the wheels off? A wheel and tyre weighs the same for everybody (if not, what about the ones changed earlier in the race? Or just before the end to go for fastest lap?)
I hope this doesn’t send teams down the multiple-stops route. A load of fans and people employed by the race-strategy industry would love that, but not me. Strategic races always run out of laps just as it’s getting interesting…
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 8:29
I assumed that was ‘leave the track the way you found it’ advice ;)
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th July 2024, 14:06
Definitely, on a weekend when Vettel’s somewhere else playing with bikes and not available to tidy up.
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 15:39
Vettel is still rearranging the moved gravel in Finland ;)
Davethechicken
29th July 2024, 10:29
Are the wheels identical between all cars, though? The tyres certainly but I thought the teams could modify certain aspects of the wheels like wheel nuts if not the rims themselves?
Anyone know the answer?
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 10:49
correct: the wheel drum/rim, fasteners, valves, etc are team specific.
Only the tyre is a standard component.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th July 2024, 14:10
Didn’t think of that, fair play. They’re hidden away behind wheel covers these days. The wheel covers at the final pit stop almost certainly weigh the same as the first stop.
Tiaki Porangi
28th July 2024, 23:34
The tyre wear thing rings a bit hollow for me.
My theory is that Mercedes underfuelled Russell in the expectation that there would be a safety car or at least a VSC, which would have allowed them to save fuel and make the legal weight minimum. I believe they underfuelled because of the pace delta to Hamilton in qualifying, with Lewis very comfortably ahead of George, and I also believe Hamilton did not know that George would be running light.
I also think George’s brilliant strategy rethink – moving to the 1-stop – was not spontaneous: rather, I think his side of the garage always planned to do this but did not inform the Hamilton side of the garage.
I believe all this fell apart thanks to Hamilton taking the lead so early in the race. It appears Hamilton was a bit blindsided by George’s one-stop strategy (hence Hamilton’s downcast mood at the end of the race) and by the failure of Mercedes to use team orders to get him past George.
In the event, he pushed George hard in the last few laps, forcing George to use more fuel defending than he had planned to, and leading directly to the breach of technical regulations as a result.
Had Mercedes eased Hamilton past Russell, they’d have had at least a 1-3, and maybe even a 1-2 if Lewis had used his DRS to tow George and keep him ahead of Oscar.
As it was, however, I think Merc tried to engineer a Russell win without Hamilton’s knowledge and cooperation by effectively overcutting Lewis with a 1-stop, going against the 2-stop strategy they appear to have agreed upon pre-race, and in the end needlessly threw away points as a result.
Anthony
29th July 2024, 2:22
Amen and agreed, Tiaki
Sumedh
29th July 2024, 4:28
Fuel saving doesn’t matter. Car is checked for weight after draining out all fuel.
MacLeod (@macleod)
29th July 2024, 7:54
What Tiaki Porangi said and meant is that team Russel hoped on a incident so a VSC or SC where they could save fuel and then this strategy would worked fine.
George was running a bit light which makes sense as he went very well in the race and it was hard to overtake him. (2liter is noticeable in laptimes)
Davethechicken
29th July 2024, 10:34
Sumedh is right. The fuel saving is irrelevant as the car only failed the minimum weight when the fuel was completely drained.
SteveP
29th July 2024, 8:14
Interesting theory, but totally, totally wrong.
The fuel weight is not part of the car package weight that is measured.
There is a defined weight for the driver plus seat etc = 80kg. see Technical regs 4.6 “Mass of the driver”
That mass is added to the measured weight of the car see Sporting regs section 35 “Weighing” and the combined weight must be a minimum of 798kg see Technical regs 4.1 “Minimum Mass”
“The mass of the car, without fuel, must not be less than 798kg, at all times during the Competition”
Broderick Harper (@banbrorace)
29th July 2024, 9:44
Excellent theory.
Makes perfect sense
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 10:52
Yet still nonsense, as many other commenters have pointed out here and in other threads.
Even you should know by now that fuel is not part of the minimum car weight; thus an argument that “Mercedes underfuelled Russell” has no impact on the disqualification.
Tunde
29th July 2024, 12:00
I’d only agree with the safety car theory as being behind the safety car for like three, four, five or more laps saves tyres. You are gently following the safety car such that tyre wear or degradation or reduced. However, I still feel this error cum disqualification is on the team…
PlosslF1 (@f1-ploss)
29th July 2024, 0:00
Something about the weight problem has been playing on my mind. Rus was 1500g underweight if you divide that up by 34 laps you get 44.1g per lap, I know that tyre wear isnt linear but if you take an average of 15 laps per stint on the hards that gives you 661.7g, so if Rus had swapped to hards with around 15 laps left he still would of been 838.3g underweight. Am I missing something obvious and being a wally :)
Dave (@davea86)
29th July 2024, 7:22
I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it.
Lets assume that Hamilton on a two stop strategy finished the race with an exactly 798kg car once the fuel is removed. His last stint was 18 laps, so it means Russell being 1500g lighter is the difference between doing an 18 lap final stint and a 34 lap final stint (16 laps). 1500g divided by 16 laps gives 93.75g per lap.
That means Hamilton lost 1688g of tyre in his last stint, but Russell went much further and lost 3188g of tyre.
I have no idea if losing over 3kg of tyre across a set during a stint is realistic or not, but that’s how the numbers work out.
MacLeod (@macleod)
29th July 2024, 7:56
1 kg is normal 2 kg you running almost on the canvas 3kg no so they fueled him also 2kg less fuel …
PlosslF1 (@f1-ploss)
29th July 2024, 12:37
I thought the numbers were hinky hence the added proviso of adding the ‘Wally’ part :)
There’s something still niggling at me about this, lets say they expected to lose as Horner said lose over 1kg call it 1.5kg on a 15 lap stint so doing a double stint would give us the 3kg you mention, how did no one notice that this would send him underweight?
I know they didn’t do a lot/any? laps on the hards on Friday but they must of known they would be losing weight at a rate that would be bringing the car weight down towards the DSQ range
Also towards the end of the race Rus said he had low deg and was good to finish on the set, and from close up camera shots Russell’s tyres showed minimal graining, how did he lose 3kg.
I know Iam wrong but there’s something still….’ not quite right ‘
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
29th July 2024, 0:02
Lewis lost the race because he lacks the straightline speed his teammate has had for at least a year now. What ever that is that makes his car much faster down the straight Lewis has to figure it out. Chances are it’s a combination of electrics and the differential … And maybe engine mode. But poor strategy not to cover his own teammate. Great execution by Mercedes as a team, karma, might have had the last laugh.
Edvaldo
29th July 2024, 1:59
Hamilton was losing at turn 1 every single lap. When he got close, it kept happening, so Russell had much better exits.
With shorter DRS zone than in previous years, he would not pass even if the race had a few more laps.
Davethechicken
29th July 2024, 10:37
Seems odd that though Edvaldo, as Russell had much older tyres one would expect his traction out of turn 1 to be much worse than Lewis on the new rubber.
It is a very slow corner so aero isn’t going to be as big a factor
W-K (@w-k)
29th July 2024, 0:07
Does this mean that all cars will now have to be overweight, so that if they change tyre strategy like this in the future, they won’t be underweight.
Just a thought, but did the FIA do this check after Verstappen’s burnout in Austria in 2021.
Ajaxn
29th July 2024, 10:02
I was wondering the same. How did Alonso & Stroll do it, Perhaps the used their last lap on this circuit to pick up the marbles off the race line. Or maybe they allowed for the extra weight when they tested the hards. Apparently Mercedes didn’t do an extended test of the hards.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 11:52
Or they did and were caught red handed?
It is, after all, the team run by Mr. Wolff that we’re talking about.
DaveW (@dmw)
29th July 2024, 6:55
Would be interesting to figure out the possible lap time advantage for Russell. At least vs Hamilton. First you have to know if he was saving more fuel and had more in the car at the end. We don’t know their relative wet weights at the end. Also if it was tire weight, that mass is spinning. Road bike cyclists spend a lot of time on this question trying to justify to their partners
buying really expensive wheelsets. This model could have a lot of variables.
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 8:41
Typical laptime saving is .3s10kg/lap. A bit more in Spa due to lap length.
Thus 1.5kg less weight saves around 0.05s/lap.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 11:40
That’s assuming
1) that the value you mention is correct for the team/car in question. Don’t know where you got that, not sure it’s true and most probably different among teams/cars as well as among drivers.
2) that it is a linear relationship. Which it isn’t: your calculation would get us to a laptime of 0 secs at a sufficient weight reduction…
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 13:34
Correct! But the weight needs to be around minus 1000-2000kg ;)
Of course it’s not linear; but on the small changes from the base we are talking about you can still use this. It’s an approximation only in the end
PS the 0.3s/10kg/lap is widely assumed and shared in F1; even the teams refer to such values.
But of course it’s a very rough estimate and will vary from team to team, track to track, day to day, tyre to tyre, etc. to etc.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 12:23
Essentially, yes, that would be interesting. This has been a ‘progressing’ concept, but at one end of the scale, in old school F1, any weight loss would be coverted to speed/laptime. On the other side of the scale, in modern F1, any weight loss is converted to optimise a variety of things, like engine wear (revs), tyre wear, fuel consumption and probably a couple more.
That would make it both difficult and probably even irrelevant, as we don’t know how the weight advantage is distributed over these factors. That would make looking at laptime deltas only, very onesided, very incomplete.
I struggle to comprehend what you might mean with ‘that mass is spinning’. Clearly, that’s what wheels do, and spinning up or slowing down the spinning of less weight obviously costs less energy than spinning up more weight. Also, the gyro effect makes spinning objects resist a change direction, and it increases with weight and rpm. Typically, the change of direction is slight at high speed corners, and the revs are low when it’s a slow speed corner. Sure, there’ll be a figure you can stick to it, but I’m not sure it’s significant.
Somehow though, I get the feeling all that is not what you mean. But how else would that have an effect on the total weight and -hence- the performance of a car, dragging its weight through corners, up and down slopes, and accelerating and decelerating?
Not saying this is about you, but:
It’s funny how such discussions always lead to engineering priciples, whereas the modern F1 fan keeps saying they’re only interested in the equal playing field for drivers and there’s (basically) no place in F1 for engineering matters at all anymore.
DaveW (@dmw)
29th July 2024, 16:48
I only mean you have to account for angular momentum of the tires in their acceleration over the lap since the missing mass would be accelerated in a circle instead of only just forward/back/sideways.
Boomerang
29th July 2024, 7:25
One mistake is tyre wear miscalculation the other is running both cars with the new floor during practice instead only one.
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 11:33
Nonsense, that team makes no mistakes, they said so themselves.
bone (@bone)
29th July 2024, 7:35
Russel should’ve crashed into the wall just after passing the finish line…Mercedes would’ve been allowed to repair the car, and fit new tyres before being weighed
Ajaxn
29th July 2024, 10:06
LOL, I think Mercedes saves that call for the last part of Q3 , from my recall of the dutch grand Prix a year or two ago.
Jere (@jerejj)
29th July 2024, 7:38
The Aston Martin hards may have been previously used, albeit only for a single installation lap, which is what they tend to do for hards & mediums, with Visa RB doing the same the second most often, & even McLaren a bit over the most recent events.
Broderick Harper (@banbrorace)
29th July 2024, 9:41
Good article.
It’s clearly an unfortunate set of circumstances, with each one (i.e. limited testing, return to the old set up, less abrasive surface than anticipated) probably on it’s own enough to us to be able to see retrospectively that a one-stop for the Merc was a bad idea.
It was interesting that Horner wasn’t full go glee – probably thinking that all of us that this was easily done and would probably have affected any team, with cars with the same unique set of circumstances.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th July 2024, 14:12
There’s still time.
Craig
29th July 2024, 10:52
I think a rather significant detail people are forgetting is that no one expected overtaking to be so hard.
Red Bull expected Verstappen to make short work of the cars ahead of him with a fresh power unit. He didn’t.
McLaren expected Norris to works his way back into contention with tyre difference. He didn’t.
Mercedes didn’t expect Russell to be able to hold off Hamilton and Piastri. He did.
On a track like Spa these things really shouldn’t have happened, but they did.
I dare say if Russell hadn’t been afforded this to fight for the lead he would have been able to cruise to a 3rd place finish at worst with more fuel saving and opportunity to pick up marbles on the last lap to ensure he had sufficient weight, but I think in his excitement this was simply forgotten.
W-K (@w-k)
29th July 2024, 11:08
Are all the tyre types the same weight when new?
Coventry Climax
29th July 2024, 11:30
That’s funny, in the analytics and statistics post, you already found out Magnussen was another one. His stop was at lap 26 or so, later than both Alonso and Russel. Don’t know if his car was checked, but he wasn’t disqualified.
notagrumpyfan
29th July 2024, 13:41
From the lap times article it seemed that also Stroll and Tsunoda were in a one stop strategy.
PS all initially classified cars were checked for weight (link).
Tunde
29th July 2024, 11:37
I’ll blame the team… Only Red bull and Aston Martin ran the hards on Friday and they had information on degradation around Spa on that rubber type and they did their calculation. During the race, Red bull didn’t run it but Aston Martin did. Aston Martin ran a longer first stint than Russell did. I’m also sure Aston added ballasts to compensate from the beginning. Mercedes always run the same strategy with its drivers. Since a one stop strategy was an unknown to them and knowing full well that there is no cool down lap in Spa, they could have just countered Russel when he made that call. I remember hearing Lewis also saying his tyres were ok, only to be overruled and called in the next lap. If they had followed their strategy, Russel could have finished at best fourth or at worst fifth. I remember he was ahead of Verstappen all through the first stint…I don’t think Verstappen would have passed Russel. To me, it’s on the team…
Is it Russell or Russel? 🤷🤷🤷🤷🤷
DMC
29th July 2024, 15:55
Everybody is wise after the event.If you asked lewis would you rather have George right behind you with fresh tires for 6 laps at the end or visa versa
I know what Lewis would chose.
DMC
29th July 2024, 16:29
The difference is George called for a one stop Lewis didn’t. He was sore because he failed to pass George as he expected to because George did a better job. Lewis of a few years ago would have had George, the fact is Lewis’s talent is diminishing.
SteveP
29th July 2024, 20:31
I think you need to wait until the end of the season and count the points.
JMDan
30th July 2024, 16:08
This is a tough one. Penalizing the driver for some technical thing that has nothing to do with him is unfair, but at the same time, who is to know if he would have won had the car not been underweight. There are definitely situations where I would penalize the team with no championship points without penalizing the driver.
SteveP
30th July 2024, 18:47
George was the one that suggested they go for the one-stop, and when asked if he was sure a few laps later, the answer was very swift and very short.
He suggested it, chose it, and confirmed it. He needs to live with the consequences of the choice.
I’m sure if Mercedes were setting up for a one-stop, they would look very closely at the likely tyre wear and ensure the ballast level covered any excessive wear and weight loss. It was considered and rejected, so the research on the weight situation would have ceased at that point.
I think, once Lewis pulled into the pits, George was blind to any consequence and only saw the reward.
That said, Merc should be well aware that he is heavy on tyres, and should have researched the risk before agreeing to his suggestion of the one-stop.