Hamilton declared Belgian GP winner after Russell disqualified

Mercedes driver George Russell has been disqualified and lost his Belgium Grand Prix win on Sunday after his car was found to be underweight, and his teammate Lewis Hamilton was promoted to first place.

Initially the car had been found to be compliant but the technical delegate's report said it had not been fully drained of fuel.

The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales with both showing the same result of 796.5kg, 1.5kg below the minimum weight required, and all other drivers move up one place in the classification.

"During the hearing the team representatives confirmed the measurement is correct and all required procedures were performed correctly," the governing FIA said in their release.

"The team also acknowledged there were no mitigating circumstances and it was a genuine error by the team."

Russell had led Hamilton home in a Mercedes one-two after he opted for a one-stop strategy.

The decision means McLaren's Oscar Piastri finishes second with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc third.

"We have to take our disqualification on the chin. We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

"We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong. To lose a one-two is frustrating and we can only apologise to George, who drove such a strong race.

"Lewis is promoted to P1. He was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner."

The inherited win means Hamilton has won the Belgian Grand Prix five times, drawing level with Ayrton Senna and one behind Michael Schumacher, who holds the record with six wins at Spa.