Mercedes believe George Russell’s car fell beneath the minimum weight limit because of higher than expected wear on his tyres and the plank underneath his car.
Russell lost victory in Sunday’s race when his W15 was found to be 1.5 kilograms below the legal minimum weight limit of 798kg. His team mate Lewis Hamilton inherited the win.“At the start of the race the cars were the same weight,” said Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. They believe unexpectedly high wear levels in two areas meant Russell’s car ended the race lighter than expected.
“Obviously it’s very disappointing and unfortunate, particularly after he’d driven such a strong race to win from so far back,” Shovlin said in a video released by Mercedes. “Right now we’re trying to understand exactly what happened.
“A lot of that involves us getting the weights of all the different components. The car can lose quite a lot of weight during the race. You get tyre wear, plank wear, brake wear, oil consumption. The drivers themselves can lose a lot and in this particular race George lost quite a bit of weight.
“Now, the cars started the race the same weight. Lewis and George were both weighed after qualifying, the cars were within 500 grams.
“George’s was the only one that had the problem and it’s because things like the tyre wear was much higher. It looks like we lost more material on the plank.”
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All cars have identical planks fitted to their underside which are measured for wear after the race. Planks are permitted to wear by no more than one millimetre during a race.
Mercedes fell foul of this rule last year, when Hamilton was disqualified after finishing second in the United States Grand Prix. Spa is a particularly challenging track to manage plank wear because of the compression as the cars pass through Eau Rouge at high speed.
The team also changed the specification of floor on both their cars at Spa after the first day of practice, which was dry. Saturday was wet but the track dried out before the race on Sunday.
Mercedes did no practice running on with hard tyre compound Russell used in his final stint, which covered almost three-quarters of the race. Russell switched to a one-stop strategy during the race, which the team did not plan before the race.
“We’ll collect all that data, look at how we can refine our processes because clearly we don’t want that to happen in the future,” Shovlin added.
Mercedes believe Russell’s car did not fall below the minimum weight limit until late in the race and it would only have provided a slight performance benefit. “In terms of pace at the start of the race, it’s nil [gain], because George’s car and Lewis’s car started the race at the same weight,” he said.
“Obviously, as George’s car was losing weight faster than Lewis’s throughout the race, there is an associated gain with that, but you’re into hundredths of a second per lap. It will be very small because when you’re talking about amounts like one or two kilos, they don’t amount to a lot of lap time.”
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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
Mayrton
31st July 2024, 14:02
The situation is the same for all drivers and all cars. I distinctively remember some drivers not going full throttle through Eau Rouge / Raidillon to prevent this from happening.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st July 2024, 16:50
I didn’t notice anyone not driving through Eau Rouge-Raidillon with a lift apart from the opening lap.
All later onboard views through that corner combination definitely featured full-throttle running as normal.
bosyber (@bosyber)
31st July 2024, 23:11
On the F1TV feed, talk was of Verstappen in particular avoiding going full throttle there for this reason during most of the race.
Simon
31st July 2024, 23:48
@jerejj
Double negatives now? Sheesh…
MacLeod (@macleod)
1st August 2024, 7:46
both Red Bull were lifting for just this problem. Only when GP said he was free he went fullon …
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
31st July 2024, 14:18
I honestly think the tyre wear issue is a bit of a red herring. Think of it this way – running a normal strategy, you would expect the tyres at the end of the race to be fairly well worn, because you want to eke out as much performance as possible from them.
Before the race, the teams thought that the hard tyres could only be competitive for a stint of around 20 laps, and therefore a 2 stop strategy was the only viable one. It turns out they were wrong, and for Mercedes at least, the hard tyres remained competitive for at least 32 laps. George was still only lapping about 7 tenths slower than Lewis at the end of the race, and still had good enough performance and traction out of the corners to ensure Lewis couldn’t even stage an attack.
Whether the stint was the expected 20 laps or the actual 32 laps is irrelevant. What is relevant is the amount of wear on the tyre. The tyres were no more worn than Mercedes should have expected at the end of a normal race, so to me this just looks like an excuse to possibly cover up for a bigger or more embarrassing mistake.
Grapmg
31st July 2024, 15:24
Good point and on top of that how much weight is 1mm (max)wear of a small plank made of fibreglass? This all sounds a bit redicoulous to me.
SteveP
31st July 2024, 20:42
Nowhere near 1.5 kg I would say.
Excessive plank wear was probably a result of the car running lower after the high tyre wear.
It probably wasn’t mentioned as a reason for DQ as the scrutineers may not have measured plank wear on any car at Spa, but I suspect if they had then it would likely have been the announced reason for the DQ..
amped
31st July 2024, 23:18
Excessive plank wear is a result of car set up, not tyre wear. F1 tyres don’t wear all that much and certainly not enough to cause plank wear. Russell’s level of performance at the end of the race show he had plenty of grip and performance left in his tyres to hold of Hamilton.
Mercedes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, failed to enter Russell’s car in compliance with the regulations and entered a car below the minium weight. 1.5KGs is an excessive amount for it to be wear, and would have been recitifiable by fitting non-worn parts.
Ajaxn
1st August 2024, 8:12
Think about it.
If the tires are worn that much more because they have gone most of the race, it makes sense that the car would be that much closer to the ground.
Not only that but the pace that Russell had through the corners over Hamilton could also be attributed to the car being that much closer to the ground and thus generating more downforce.
MacLeod (@macleod)
1st August 2024, 8:07
1,5kg was for the total i saw an video that it was 500g for the plank and 1kg loss of rubber is easy to get as they can get several kg just driving on marbels pickup at the end of the race.
So losing several kg from a tyre (x4) is not a strange thing and it’s calculated for the race.
Mercedes was just too marginal on the calculated weight and when George went of the planned stops they would have a problem. This also means Lewis couldn’t do a 1 stop for the same reason.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
2nd August 2024, 4:35
there were other drivers who did a 1 stop. So I don’t really see your point.
Maybe Russell was running a lower car, we don’t really know because a lot of how his car was setup, and the condition of the tires are not known.
It was a great drive by Russell for sure, but Hamilton was screwed by his team once again, so I chalk it up to karma actually coming back around to bite Toto and his marketing agenda.
And for the record, Russell would look much better in orange, or papaya or what ever. Despite what ever games Mercedes are playing with the ultimate narratives being generated by the stakeholders of the ‘sport’.
MacLeod (@macleod)
2nd August 2024, 7:50
@pcxmac The point i tried to make is that or they went out with to low ballast (forgot) or they had not calculated the 1 stop (looking to the others should be no problem) just on the edge giving George a good platform to operate.
MadMax (@madmax)
2nd August 2024, 7:59
@pcxmac no one-stopper stopped as early as Russell. And if the one stop race would have been taken into account, then they could have started the race with a bit more ballast. ALO, STR and TSU obviously did so. The unplanned switch of strategy during the race was the source of the weight-problem.
notagrumpyfan
31st July 2024, 17:12
good point.
It’s not that they were ‘unlucky’ that Russell was too light, but ‘lucky’ that Lews wasn’t (if both cars were the same weight at the start).
grat
31st July 2024, 18:26
How do you know how worn Russell’s tires were at the end of the race?
AlanD
31st July 2024, 22:13
Russell could have had more downforce on his car than other runners, leading to better grip but more tyre wear. The surprise is that the hard tyres seem to have much more life than expected, being able to lose a lot of rubber without a performance drop off. Rubber is pretty dense, If you recall the erasers that get used with pencils, just one of those, about the size of a packet of Wrigleys chewing gum, weighs about 25g. Imagine 16 of those spread out over the large surface area of an F1 tyre. Not a lot is it?
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
2nd August 2024, 4:39
Russell was able to drive slower than the other cars due to the one stop, which given with the chemical formula of the compounds being used, made the tires much more stable and less likely to degrade. Also, the teams realized after the start that tire deg was much lower than expected, when you have good tires, and are able to run cooler because you can drive slower for half or 2/3 of a stint, you get significantly more performance in the long run, this was how Russell was able to turn his tires on at the end, because the threshold for deg on the compound was not being met as he waited for HAM who was burning thru his tires, to catch him.
Russell’s race engineer knew he could make a one stop work. This is why at tracks where track position is really important, you will see even more less stops given the chemistry of the compounds and how they don’t work very well the faster you go.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
1st August 2024, 6:51
I agree! It does sound like Mercedes are trying to avoid saying what really happened.
Leroy (@g-funk)
31st July 2024, 14:18
The amount of time gained may be very small per lap, but it allowed George to break later than his rivals, which allowed him to keep them behind. So, while in terms of overall pace it may not have been significant, in terms of maintaining track position, it was significant.
Leroy (@g-funk)
31st July 2024, 14:19
*brake
Red Andy (@red-andy)
31st July 2024, 14:31
Ultimately it’s similar to Hamilton’s DQ at Austin last year – we just don’t know how he would have performed if the car had been legal.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
1st August 2024, 6:59
The silly part about that disqualification is it highlighted the inadequacies of the FIA’s scrutineering.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
1st August 2024, 11:45
I thought it was a good example of how the system works well, actually.
Hamilton and Leclerc were observed to be bouncing excessively by the FIA technical delegate, who subsequently called the cars in for scrutineering; they also examined a couple of extra cars as controls. It was a good way to test that the excess plank wear was indeed correlated with the abnormal bouncing they had observed.
Jere (@jerejj)
31st July 2024, 16:51
But only marginally later, if at all, & he could’ve still won the race even without being underweight at any point in the race.
SteveP
31st July 2024, 21:05
If he had a lower running height due to tyre wear, or whatever, isn’t that going to improve the cornering ability while maintaining a higher speed than an identical car trying to overtake?
The side effect of that is that the plank wear is higher and, if the scrutineers check that, you get a DQ.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st August 2024, 3:19
The point is it’s still possible he could’ve defended with a regular car here and that hamilton would’ve got 2nd at austin with a regular car, the difference these minor technical breeches make is minimal, there’s no telling that if russell had been half a tenth slower per lap it’d have been possible to overtake him, hamilton was gaining 9 tenths until he caught up.
PB
31st July 2024, 16:15
The time gain from reduced weight doesn’t matter.
What really matters is that he needed to pit and lose 22s in order to stay within legal weight range.
Interesting that he thinks George perspired more than Lewis, and that if the cars were only 500g different,
(assume this is *including* tires?) then there was a 1kg difference in sweat.
Weird Science
31st July 2024, 16:48
Well that’s put me off my dinner!
grat
31st July 2024, 18:28
It’s happened before. Water loss as high as 4kg has been reported in the past.
Singapore, Malaysia, and even Hungary have been particularly brutal.
SteveP
1st August 2024, 8:50
It just occurred to me that as George is notably taller than Lewis, then he is probably the heavier driver.
So, if George + car was lighter by 500g then there’s less inert mass in his car (less ballast essentially) so it tips more toward the volatile mass (human stuff)
Then you could possibly factor in the “stupids” like George is weighed with a bottle of water in his hand and having drunk a bottle in the previous 30 mins, which would raise his weight by 1 kg (approx) – temporarily.
Every team is running things as near to the wire as they can, with only small margins for error and something like that could mean a close to normal limits setup just became very marginal, add tyre wear from a long stint, do happy bounces with your team instead of slurping water (new weight) before stepping on the scales, and you’re saying hello to a DQ on weight.
Everyone is looking for the attempted cheat, but, Hanlons Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
AlanD
1st August 2024, 19:46
Steve: “Everyone is looking for the attempted cheat”
I don’t think anyone else has suggested Mercedes were deliberatley running the car underweight. If they were, it would be a brainless way of cheating because all the cars get weighed at the end of the race.
Jack
31st July 2024, 17:17
High plank wear…Hmmm and after Lewis got disqualified for that last year Toto stated he would always run the risk of an illegal car rather than be too safe.
André
31st July 2024, 18:58
Seems plausible. The long stint meant higher tyre wear, which made the car run even lower, thus accelerating plank wear. That also possibly meant that towards the end of the race George had the car running pretty low, which helped his performance in sector 2 in particular. So it’s not just the benefit of carrying less mass, but also the aerodynamic benefit of running closer to the ground. Potentially.
Mog
31st July 2024, 20:57
Do we really believe this?
Merc knew the car was underweight and lied in trying to get it past scrutineering. Now they are are trying to justify and gaslight the fans.
In reality the only plausible explanation is they didn’t put enough weight in the v car.
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
31st July 2024, 22:26
This isn’t true by the way. The FIA procedure is that they weigh the car without draining the fuel first. Only if the car is close to the minimum weight limit do they then drain the fuel and re-weigh to see if the car is underweight, which is what happened in Spa.
SteveP
31st July 2024, 23:04
Ah, so if George hadn’t been heavy hoofing it to keep ahead, he’d have used less fuel. Since a couple of litres would have him over 1.5kg heavier (gasoline is something like 0.74/0.75 kg/litre) he would and thereby avoid the second weighing.
So, at the root of it, it’s all Lewis fault for catching him :)
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
2nd August 2024, 4:47
Because Lewis can’t pass George down the straight almost ever, I have to think fuel levels and engine modes are probably the most to blame. I think George is a party member so to speak, and Lewis is on his way out, and not afforded the same ‘boost’ down the straights.
Bob
31st July 2024, 23:37
The regulations clearly state the car must be removed of all fuel before being weighted. The regulations are clearly printed in the original article right here on racefans.
““After the race, car number 63 was weighed and its weight was 798.0 kg, which is the minimum weight required by [Technical Regulations] Article 4.1.
“After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed. The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as [Technical Regulations] Article 6.5.2 is fulfilled.” https://www.racefans.net/2024/07/28/heartbreaking-russell-disqualified-hamilton-handed-belgian-gp-victory/
They tried to lie, said the car was clean of fuel, only to then be forced to drain a further 2.8 litres of fuel out of the car..
They clearly knew the car was under weight, its just trying to figure out if it was at the start or not, but thats some thing Merc would never own up to, so will obviously say any thing and every thing instead of admitting they cheated. its like a page from Horners play book.
Bojangles
1st August 2024, 9:52
I think you are right that it is plausible that they tried to cheat by not draining all fuel from the car..
SteveP
1st August 2024, 10:27
I think you’re misunderstanding what that is.
“6.5.2 Competitors must ensure that a 1.0 litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the Competition.”
The stewards are referencing a requirement on the team to ensure that there is at least one litre of fuel in the tank available for fuel sampling which takes place after the weighing that was fulfilled by ensuring there was 2.8 litres of fuel at the finish.
The car was underweight, but the fuel present at the time of first weighing wasn’t an attempt to obscure that.
I would imagine that the scrutineers treat any car with a weight of 800kg or less as marginal and in need of a drained weight check, but above 800kg “wet” weight they don’t normally bother because, as Horner put it, you’re carrying fuel as ballast.
SteveP
1st August 2024, 11:38
Three point eight, not two point eight. Two point eight plus the one litre required to be extracted from the tank by an FIA official for fuel sampling. Was it Vettel that had a penalty/DQ because they couldn’t get 1.0 litre from the tank?
A smart set of scrutineers would synchronise their work so that the sequence is fuel sample extraction, draining, weighing.
From descriptions of the procedures as practised, I’m suspecting they don’t do it that way.
Mr Squiggle
31st July 2024, 23:11
is there a reason why Lewis’ car wasn’t weighed after the race? After the sister car was found to be underrwieght?
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
31st July 2024, 23:48
Every car is weighed after each race. That includes Lewis’s car.
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
31st July 2024, 23:52
* That is, every car that finishes the race.
SteveP
1st August 2024, 10:33
Specifically:
35.2 After the sprint session or the race any classified car may be weighed.
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2024, 18:58
Key word being “may”.
From the FIA’s own documents, all the cars at Belgium were weighed apart from Zhou’s because he DNFed.
SteveP
2nd August 2024, 13:12
Yeah, I don’t understand why they use “may” all over the place. a few small samples skipping down the sporting regs:
may be weighed (will they? won’t they?), “he stewards may impose penalty points on a driver’s Super Licence.” (will they, won’t they?)
and “TCC’s may only take place on tracks located in Europe” (maybe they will, maybe they won’t – A. N. Other USA based competitor says “well, if you’re paying the air freight charges Mr FIA, then fine, otherwise I’m using the track that’s really close to me”)
Not withstanding the euro-centric stance on that last one, what do they intend the rule to mean?
AlanD
2nd August 2024, 19:55
Steve, I presume the use of “may be” is one of those lawyer words to give the stewards pragmatic flexibility which wouldn’t be there if they said “will be” i.e. if the car that finished 17th wasn’t weighed because the weighbridge broke down, they don’t want someone creating a court case claiming that the stewards failed to follow correct and legal procedures and therefore the whole race result should be decalred null and void. “May be” says the stewards are entitled to weigh every car, but they are not absolutely required to. Lawyers love arguing the precise wording of regulations instead of the intent.
Steve (@scbriml)
1st August 2024, 18:52
It was. See the FIA’s scrutineering document – it lists every check performed on every car. For Belgium, every car was weighed except for Zhou’s because he DNFed.
Ajaxn
1st August 2024, 9:26
As an experienced driver George should have known better.
He knew Spa doesnt allow a celebration lap, eg no marbles to collect. He would have known long stints on the tires lead to weight loss. I’ll forgive him about the plank and the resulting better cornering speeds.
All this happened because the ‘new team leader’ made that call and the rest of Mercedes didn’t know how to say no!
David West
1st August 2024, 18:12
How much do the drivers drinks bottles with drink weigh and is this counted in the car weight? Did George drink more than Lewis?
AlanD
1st August 2024, 19:57
David, the drivers are weighed as well and added to the weight of the car so it doesn’t matter whether the drink is still in the bottle or in the driver. Listening to onboard radios, I’ve heard drivers told to drink on the cool down lap, presumably because they are not allowed to drink after they leave the car until the weighing procedures are completed.
SteveP
2nd August 2024, 13:28
Standard water bottles are 500 ml, which if you know the units is 500 gm @ 4C
I’ve been thinking (yeah, borrowed a brain :) ) and Mercedes say the cars and the drivers were weighed and were within 500gm of each other.
However, crucially, the statement also includes the words “after qualifying” and in “parc ferme”
The cars are in a pound and will not change weight, the drivers are not.
Did someone assume that George and Lewis both weighed the same on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon? In fact, did George weigh more on Sunday evening than mid-afternoon?
Basically, was the dry weight of car + George on the wire before the race started?
Do the FIA keep data on driver weight at finish of Q3 and finish of race?
Do the teams keep data on weights at start of Q1 end of Q3, start of race, finish of race?