Mercedes suspects that plank and tyre wear, plus weight loss by George Russell himself, may have contributed to his car being under the limit at the end of Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Russell was disqualified from his victory after last weekend’s race at Spa when his Mercedes was found to be 1.5kg below the minimum weight limit of 798kg that includes the driver.
Early analysis conducted by Mercedes has not pinpointed one single factor as the cause of the problem, with the German manufacturer continuing to measure all car components to try to understand where things went wrong.
Initial suspicions revolved around the likelihood that Russell’s tyres had worn away – and therefore lost mass – because he had pulled off an unexpected one-stop strategy in the race.
With tyres losing up to 1kg over the course of a stint, it is highly feasible that the extra wear on old tyres, compared to a newer set that Russell would have used if he had stuck to a two-stop, could make up the 375g per difference on each tyre that would have got him over the weight limit.
But speaking in Mercedes’ regular post-race debrief video, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has suggested that other factors were also at play – which the team was now digging into.
“[It was] obviously very disappointing and unfortunate, particularly after he'd driven such a strong race to win from so far back,” explained Shovlin.
“Right now, we're trying to understand exactly what happened. A lot of that involves us getting the weights of all the different components.
“The car can lose quite a lot of weight during the race. You get tyre wear, plank wear, brake wear, oil consumption. The driver themselves can lose a lot. And in this particular race, George lost quite a bit of weight.”
Shovlin explained that there had been no warning before the race about a potential situation developing, with Russell and team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s car weight being almost identical when measured after qualifying.
“The cars started the race the same weight,” added Shovlin. “Lewis and George were both weighed after qualifying. The cars were within 500 grammes.
“George's was the only one that had the problem, and it's because things like the tyre wear was much higher. It looks like we lost more material on the plank. We'll collect all that data, though, and look at how we can refine our processes, because clearly we don't want that to happen in the future.”
With it widely understood that 10kg of weight can be worth around 0.3 seconds around a track like Spa-Francorchamps, a missing 1.5kg could have given an incremental gain in performance.
Shovlin thinks, however, that the true benefit was hard to measure, especially as the cars started the race weighing the same.
Asked about the impact of Russell’s lighter car, Shovlin said: “In terms of pace at the start of the race, it's nil because George's car and Lewis's car start the race at the same weight.
“Now, obviously, as George's car was losing weight faster than Lewis's throughout the race, there is an associated gain with that, but you're into the hundredths of a second per lap.
“It will be very small, because when you're talking about amounts, like one or two kilos, they don't amount to a lot of lap time.”
