Mercedes explained the reason for the underweight of Russell’s car

George Russell won the Belgian Grand Prix, but was disqualified a few hours after the finish because the car was 1.5kg lighter than the minimum. Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin explained what caused the underweight.

Andrew Shovlin: “We’re trying to figure out exactly what happened. The overall weight of the car is affected by the weight of many individual components, and the car loses quite a bit of weight during a race. This is caused by tire wear, steering column wear, brake wear, oil consumption. A racer can also lose weight, and in this particular race George lost a lot of weight.

At the beginning our cars weighed about the same. After qualifying the weight difference between Lewis and George was less than 500 grams. The problem was only with George’s car, but his tyre wear was much higher. In addition his control strip was more worn.

We study all available data and think about how processes can be improved. Of course, we don’t want this to happen again in the future.”

When asked how much speed George Russell gained from the lighter weight, Shovlin said: “At the start of the race there was no difference between George and Lewis because their cars weighed about the same. However, as the race progressed, George’s car lost weight faster than Lewis’s, and this gave him a clear advantage.

But we are talking about hundredths of a second per lap. The speed gain was minimal, since we are talking about 1-2 kg, which has almost no effect on the lap time.”