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The Pit Straight: In Search of Justice for George Russell

George Russell‘s gutsy and historic one-stop drive to the win in Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix was for naught after his car was deemed to be underweight after the race.

While Lewis Hamilton was being declared the winner of the race after the fact, the prevailing theory circulating in the F1 community was that Russell’s tires, those he pushed to an extraordinary distance to finish the race on one pit stop, had degraded such that they were stripped of enough rubber to put the car under the minimum weight.

Assuming this theory is accurate, Alex Gintz, Tom Blackburn and Wyatt Watson convene on The Pit Straight to sort out what sort of universe could allow this to happen, how this ironic disqualification impacts the legitimacy of F1’s regulations and even hash out an alternative penalty for the Mercedes team and their underweight car.

See also
F1 Review: 'Wait' Issue? George Russell DQ Elevates Lewis Hamilton to Win in Belgium

The Pit Straight is Frontstretch‘s open-wheel racing podcast, available during the racing season weekly on Tuesdays on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and right here on the web.

Alex is the IndyCar Content Director at Frontstretch, having initially joined as an entry-level contributor in 2021. He also serves as Managing Director of The Asia Cable, a publication focused on the international affairs and politics of the Asia-Pacific region which he co-founded in 2023. With previous experience in China, Japan and Poland, Alex is particularly passionate about the international realm of motorsport and the politics that make the wheels turn - literally - behind the scenes.

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Ron

The actual number for weight doesn’t matter, teams will always cut it as close as possible. All competitive pro racing has minimum car weight. The lack of cool down lap is what got them, but Mercedes knew that. On the spec cars, you wouldn’t have ABS on nearly every car made or hybrid cars. F1 lives on the bleeding edge and has developed many safety and speed breakthroughs which have filtered into all automobiles. note: F1 banned ABS, too easy for the drivers, but they did develop it. Great show btw,