How Mercedes' 'inexcusable' DQ cost Russell
F1 win in Spa

Too bad. Saw the race this morning. Not the driver's fault. Wonder if a weight fell out of the car or does that not happen in F1.

In the old days there was a weigh in before the races, but not after, and streaks of sand, or even lead shot was found trackside where it had been jettisoned during the race from hidden compartments, or with trap doors from inside roll cages.

At least a small part of society has rules, and enforces them. Maybe I’ll start following F1. Can’t watch Olympics or college/paraprofessional football. Thanks for posting. A nice diversion.

For sake of the greens to save fuel and the environment they should lower the weight a little.

What do you suppose is the weight of rubber missing from four worn tires?

Some suggest that may be, #5. George's extra long last stint was heroic but yeah, tires wear. The car passed spec for qualy and parc ferme but underweight for the race? With Spa so long, no cool down lap when extra rubber - marbles - is normally picked up by hot tires. So as it is, an historic and very sad DQ. Merc sent to car to scrutineering at legal weight but with extra fuel that should have been emptied. Fingers wait to be pointed, a clumsy mistake or an attempt to deceive?

I'm sorry for being so out of the loop, but does the fact that this guy stopped at Dairy Queen means he loses the race?

Frankly, while I was impressed by Russell's ability to run fast and keep his hard compound tires working for that long, I was actually expecting some of the cars to be DQed because of 'plank wear', running the car set too low. Some of his lower tire wear was due to lower weight of the car, too. It turns out an illegally low weight. But during the early stage of the race the two Mercedes drivers were told via radio to begin to "lift and coast", meaning getting off the throttle early and coast a bit before hitting the brakes for corners. This is to save fuel. Why save fuel in a race??? Because the car is literally TOO LIGHT to meet the regulations with no fuel in the car. This is INTENTIONAL by the team, as they intend to have enough remaining fuel to meet the minimum weight rule. The cars are only checked for weight AFTER the race. Some teams plan on there being a crash which leads to a Safety Car being sent out and a few laps at slow speed while the wreck is removed from the track. Without a Safety Car, full power running the whole time uses more fuel. Fuel is weight. Weight is slowness. Mercedes knew that in four of the last five races at this track there had been a Safety Car. The team bet that there would be a Safety Car this race......and lost the bet. And their "lift and coast" wasn't enough to make up the difference in the fuel that they shorted Russell. Apparently the other Mercedes, Hamilton, did more effective 'lift and coast' and did save enough fuel. 1.5 kg of fuel is right at half a gallon of fuel. The cars are only permitted to have a maximum of 110 kg (~28 gallons) of fuel, and the teams often put in even less because this makes the car faster. They are cutting EVERY corner that they can to go faster. They cut this one too close. One old rule of thumb is 0.3 sec/lap gain for 10 kg weight reduction. Spa is a longer than usual lap, so probably around 0.4 sec per lap for 10 kg less weight. 1.5 kg less weight should be around 0.06 second per lap. Over a 44 lap race, this is 2.6 seconds. This margin would have put Russell into second or third at the end, IIRC what the final spacing was. Second place was about 1 second behind and third about 1 more second.

Re #1. Not likely. If a part is missing from accident damage, that is considered. No accident damage to Russell's car. The extra wear on tires because Russell ran them far longer than anyone thought possible....possible weight loss. The lack of "pickup"....yes, this is real, but they knew that no cooldown lap at Spa is the norm, so no pickup would be happening.