Toto Wolff after Russell’s disqualification: “We clearly made a mistake”
The Mercedes team principal takes the blame and says he"accepts George Russell's disqualification with fair play" after the Belgian Grand Prix.
Despite a victory at the Belgian Grand Prix, the atmosphere must be quite gloomy over at Mercedes. With George Russell being disqualified, the team loses the 18 points from second place, while Lewis Hamilton takes home the trophy. A bad move for the constructors’ championship… And, most importantly, a terrible mistake on the part of the German team.
This has issued an official statement from its CEO and team principal Toto Wolff, less than an hour after the decision by the FIA and the stewards was made.
« We must accept our disqualification with fair play. We clearly made a mistake and we must make sure to learn from it. We will restart, evaluate what happened, and understand what went wrong. Losing a double is frustrating and we can only apologize to George who ran such a solid race », the Austrian assumes.
Lewis is of course promoted to first place; he was the fastest with the two-stop strategy and deserves this victory,” he said, taking away the positives from this day. Despite the disqualification, there are many positive points that we can take from this weekend. We had a car that was the reference in today’s race with two different strategies. Just a few months ago, this would have been inconceivable.
The team leader concludes by stating that they are now heading into the summer break after winning three of the last four races, another positive point. “We hope to come back after the break recharged and with the goal of maintaining our positive momentum,” he concludes.
A naturally disappointed George Russell after his disqualification.
On his part, George Russell indicated on X that he had a broken heart after the announcement of his disqualification, just as he had won the third victory of his career. “We were underweight by 1.5 kg and were disqualified from the race. We gave everything on the track today and I am proud to have crossed the finish line first. There will be others to come,” he added.
Heartbreaking… We came in 1.5kg underweight and have been disqualified from the race.
We left it all on the track today and I take pride in crossing the line first.
There will be more to come.🏆💙 pic.twitter.com/6RfucAqPyF
— George Russell (@GeorgeRussell63) July 28, 2024
