Formula One latest: Belgium GP drama after Russell disqualified and Red Bull’s dominance hanging in the balance
The Formula One season is throwing up more drama and shock winners each race week. The trip to Belgium saw another week of uncertainty on the track as George Russell emerged the winner, for an hour later to be stripped of his title and it going to Lewis Hamilton. We’re taking a look at the latest.
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00:00So, Dan, before we get into the fantastic race in the Belgium Grand Prix, I mean, it
00:08just seems like F1, as of recent weeks and months, has sort of had this sort of unpredictable
00:14drama come back into the sport. I mean, it's sort of drawing back the, you know, the real
00:19reason why a lot of fans actually started to love the sport as well. Could you sort
00:23of agree with that?
00:24I certainly can. I think at the moment, you don't really have one car that's massively
00:31faster than the others, which you've had a lot for the past couple of years, with Red
00:34Bull really streets ahead of the rest of all the teams. Right now, though, Red Bull, their
00:39advantage has pretty much been wiped out by the likes of McLaren and Mercedes. Ferrari
00:43maybe just tucked in a little bit behind those as well, then they get to the best of the
00:47rest. But Red Bull's advantage, compared to where it was, is really minute now. Obviously,
00:52you've had McLaren winning races, you've had Mercedes winning three of the last four
00:56races as well, whose aero packages work the best, whose upgrades work the best, at different
01:02circuits. Obviously, we've got the summer break now, a couple of weeks off from Grand
01:07Prix racing after the Belgian Grand Prix, which we'll dissect in a moment. But yes,
01:11there's no real car that's a lot faster than any of the others, which is making for a really
01:16tense competition. Of course, at the start of the year, Red Bull still were the fastest,
01:20hence why Max Verstappen has got that big championship lead at the moment. But given
01:24the fact that he's not really streets ahead anymore, you never know what might happen
01:28come the end of the season if things keep going this way. But I think for fans of the
01:32sport who perhaps want to see a bit more of a battle, that could well be on the cards.
01:38Yeah, obviously about an hour and 10 minutes after the Grand Prix had finished and George
01:43Russell was crowned an F1 winner for, I think, the second or third time in his career so
01:49far. And then it comes out that he's been disqualified. For any sort of fans who might
01:54be getting into the sport, what are the sort of guidelines around his disqualification
01:59and why he wasn't able to go on to win the race?
02:02I think what you need to know first is that the FIA, which is the governing body of motorsport
02:06in Formula One, they're very strict on their regulations and they tend not to be lenient
02:12at all. You can be, whether your car's a couple of millimetres too low to the ground, that's
02:18not good enough, or whether there's a certain angle on the wing that doesn't fit the regulations.
02:22They're very strict like this. And it's the same in terms of that car's weight, because
02:26weight can make a massive difference in the performance of a car. If your car is a lot
02:29lighter than the other cars, it's going to be faster. When George Russell's car was inspected,
02:34as all cars are, after the Grand Prix, it was found to be at the very minimum weight
02:39that is required of a Formula One car at the end of a Grand Prix. And then when fuel was
02:42drained from it, it went below that weight by about 1.5 kilograms. And unfortunately,
02:48that's not really something that an awful lot can be done about it. It's sort of a case
02:52of the strategy that's helped him win the race on track has cost him it off track.