2024 F1 Belgian GP race analysis by Peter Windsor

It was a bittersweet day for Mercedes, with George Russell being disqualified after winning the race on the road with a stunning one-stop strategy and Sir Lewis Hamilton, who finished in his shadow, taking over the win. Russell's car was found to be 1.5kg under the minimum weight limit in post-race scrutineering - and Mercedes already seem to have accepted that there were no extraneous circumstances. This is the second time in two races that the Russell car has been the subject of a weight margin issue: in Hungary qualifying, Russell missed the Q1 cut when his car ran out of fuel before the chequered flag. McLaren-Mercedes' Oscar Piastri finished third on the road in Spa, right behind the Mercedes pair, and thus moves up to P2 in the final results; and P3 now, after leading initially from the pole, was Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen, who started P11 after incurring a ten-place grid penalty due to an out-of-regulation engine change, finished fourth and thus goes into the August break with a comfortable 78-point lead over McLaren-Mercedes' Lando Norris (who finished P5 in Belgium). Peter Windsor in this video looks back at an extraordinary day in the Ardennes forest - at the strategy that appeared to give Russell the win; at Lewis Hamilton's immaculate drive; at why the McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari challenges fell short; and at how Verstappen's drive evolved from P11 to P4.
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Alternative race stats courtesy of Aleš Norskŷ:
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