Possible Spa DQ

[Dare]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/belgium-gp-winner-russell-faces-disqualification-as-car-found-underweight/ar-BB1qM8XT?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=fcb7

[Jericoke]

Instead of a victory lap they drove right into the pits and parc ferme.

Normally they drive around picking up 'marbles' on the tires.  I always wondered if that really makes a difference.  I guess it does!

[Willy]

Whether or not they did a victory lap may not make a difference as the weight after removing any residual fuel was the factor.

[Andy B]

No cooldown laps at Spa!

[John S]

Can the mighty Merc team of a thousand people really be brought to their knees by lack of marbles pick up on a lap of Spa? 

The simple answer is NO definitely not.

Lewis' car made the weight so something else is amiss. 
Bet it's a basic human error like someone transposed some digits when entering weight of a component, - or more scarily something is missing that should have been fitted be on car. 

[Robem64]

George's car was 1.5kg underweight I believe. Thats under 400g per tire effectively - a fairly small amount so I can fully conceive that with George only taking one stop the marble pick up would have made all the difference. Especially considering the fine margins they run in the sport.
This theory could be way off the mark (no pun intended) but I'd say it has some credibility.

Gutted for George as I like the fact he's prepared to take a strategy gamble and make a decision himself in the car. On this occasion he took the gamble and it very nearly reaped rewards - the DSQ clearly not his fault. I just hope it doesn't put him off making decisions in the future.

[John S]

George's car was 1.5kg underweight I believe. Thats under 400g per tire effectively - a fairly small amount so I can fully conceive that with George only taking one stop the marble pick up would have made all the difference. Especially considering the fine margins they run in the sport.
This theory could be way off the mark (no pun intended) but I'd say it has some credibility.

I can understand your thinking, but Merc like every other team will have - or should have - factored in no pick up after race.

If Merc failed to factor in no marble pick up then Hamilton's car should have been underweight, less than 1.5 kilo George's car was missing obviously. If he was running everything same as George why didn't he fail weight check too?   

Other runners, Alonso & Tsunoda, ran a one stop too; yet they both passed weight check without marbles pick up. 

[Robem64]

Good points John........George does seem to get the bad rub of the green with things like this, bad pit stops or car issues. A real shame for him as he drove a really good race and deserved more

[lkjohnson1950]

Lewis made 2 stops, so he had more rubber left on the tire at the end. George not only one stopped, he stopped fairly early, so his tires were more worn. I would like to know what Lewis' car weighed at tech. I bet he was close as well.

[Dare]

Alonso & Tsunoda's cars may have weighed more than the Mercedes
before the tires were added

[Andy B]

It was definitely the tires that caused GR's disqualification as he pitted on lap 10 and ran 34 laps on the hard to the end which was far longer than the other one stoppers with FA stopping on 13, KM on 17 and YT on 15.
At one point GR's tyres were removed and weighed which would also indicate tyres were the issue and for Mercedes not adding this to the race calculations is a quite some error!

[rmassart]

It was definitely the tires that caused GR's disqualification

I am quite ignorant of the weight regulations, but it strikes me as odd that the tires would be included in the weight of the car, as they are a variable component. Just like they remove the fuel from the car, wouldn't they also remove the tires, before weighing it?

[lkjohnson1950]

You might think but...FIA! 

[John S]

One unanswered question in all this is why the FIA totally drained George's Mercedes car?   
Usually they only take the mandatory 1 litre fuel sample.
Is that what Merc were counting on only to be caught out by excessive tyre wear from one stop which pushed it over the edge?

Now this raises 2 further questions:-
(1) Did Merc forget to take into account a one stop strategy in all their plans - inc no pick up at end?
(2) Did FIA fully drain Lewis car or just take 1 litre sample?

Question (1) raises doubts over Merc race strategy, why allow 1 stop if you've not properly factored in tyre loss? After all it is a known fact in races. This is just a total Merc c*ck-up.

Question (2) goes to the heart of how near the edge Merc are prepared to go with the regs. Yeah I know everyone wants to be as near lowest weight as possible, but were Merc banking on any extra fuel over 1 litre keeping them above min weight?
If Merc were/are doing this it's possibly just plain cheating.     
 

[Andy B]

All cars are completely drained of fuel before weighing as the rules state: -Article 4.1 of F1’s technical rules, regarding “minimum mass” of each car.
 “The mass of the car, without fuel, must not be less than 798kg, at all times during the competition.