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SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium (AP) — Lewis Hamilton was promoted to first place at the Belgian Grand Prix after race officials disqualified his Mercedes teammate George Russell for driving an underweight car on Sunday.
Russell crossed the line first after making only one pit stop, finishing just ahead of Hamilton. He celebrated the win in Spa, which would have been the third of the British driver’s career.
But race officials found that his car weighed in below the established limits and ruled to disqualify his result.
“It is heartbreaking to be disqualified from today’s race. It had been an unbelievable grand prix for us to make the one-stop strategy work," Russell said. “Despite the disqualification, I am of course proud to have crossed the line first. It is also good that the team was still able to take the victory with Lewis.”
Hamilton took his record haul to 105 F1 career victories for the former seven-time world champion. He has now won two of the last three races after his triumph at Silverstone earlier this month ended a wait of nearly 1,000 days without a win dating back to the penultimate race of 2021. His resurgence comes after he decided to join Ferrari next season and put an end to his 12 years with Mercedes.
“I feel for George, and you don’t want to win a race through a disqualification, but we have been back in the fight for victories in the past few races,” Hamilton said. "It is incredibly competitive now."
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri moved up into second place, while pole-sitter Charles Leclerc of Ferrari completed the podium.
Points leader Max Verstappen was fourth after the three-time defending champion started from 11th following a 10-place grid penalty for using one too many engines in his Red Bull.
Lando Norris endured another poor start in his McLaren and was fifth, allowing Verstappen to extend his championship lead to 78 points.
“All in all it was quite a positive day for me, considering we started at P11, and we finished in front of Lando, who is my main rival in the championship," Verstappen said.
Russell’s disqualification ruined what had been deemed a masterclass in tire management by the 26-year-old driver who started from sixth. He only boxed once while the other top drivers all stopped twice over the 44-lap race.
His only stop came on lap 10, so Russell stayed out for 34 laps on the same tires and fended off Hamilton who had spent 18 laps on his last set.
After Russell shouted for joy after the checkered flag, his team radio half-jokingly praised him as “the tire whisperer.”
But that was all for naught.
“We have to take our disqualification on the chin,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said
“We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it… To lose a 1-2 is frustrating and we can only apologize to George who drove such a strong race.”
After struggling early on this season, Mercedes has now won three of the last four races. Russell triumphed in Austria and Hamilton in Britain.
With McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari all producing similar pace – and avoiding race-ending crashes — the victory was a question of small margins and getting the pit-stop and tire strategy right. The top six all crossed within 10 seconds.
The seven winners in 13 races after the Hungarian GP had already made this season the most competitive since 2012.
Verstappen has now gone four races without a win after he won four of the first five grands prix this year.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was sixth, ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez, who had started second in another poor showing for the under-pressure Mexican driver. Fernando Alonso was eighth for Aston Martin, and Esteban Ocon in his Alpine and RB's Daniel Ricciardo closed out the points.
The Spa track, set in the rolling forests of the Ardennes, is the longest in F1 at seven kilometers (4.3 miles). It stayed dry on Sunday in contrast to the constant drizzle the day before that led to a F2 race being postponed.
With 14 of 24 races down, the season now enters a summer break until the Dutch GP on Aug. 25.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing