George Russell has been disqualified from the Belgian Grand Prix after his car was found to be underweight, with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton inheriting the win.

Jo Bauer, the FIA's technical delegate for Formula 1, reported Russell and his Mercedes team to the stewards after weighing his car. Russell's car was 1.5kg below the minimum requirement, with the Englishman expected to lose his race win.

Bauer's report read: "After the Race, car number 63 was weighed and its weight was 798.0 kg, which is the minimum weight required by TR Article 4.1. After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.6 litres of fuel were removed. The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as TR Article 6.5.2 is fulfilled.

"The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales and the weight was 796.5 kg. The calibration of the outside and inside scales were confirmed and witnessed by the competitor. As this is 1.5 kg below the minimum weight requested in TR 4.1, which also has to be respected at all times during the Competition, I am referring this matter to the Stewards for their consideration."

After a wait of around an hour, it was then confirmed that Russell has been disqualified - allowing Hamilton to claim an unlikely win. Speaking about the decision, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: "As a team there are positives to take but, for George, it is a massive blow - a driver with childhood dreams of winning these races, and that has been taken away... A mistake has happened."

Russell thought he had pulled off a stunning victory in Spa, having started the race sixth on the grid. The 26-year-old made the bold call to pit just once during the 44-lap race, allowing him to pull ahead of Hamilton, third-place Oscar Piastri and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc in fourth.

Leclerc had started on pole to initially lead, but was overtaken by Hamilton within two laps. The seven-time world champion looked well set to score his second win in three races, having previously won at Spa on four occasions.

But while Hamilton and most of the other drivers on the gird opted for a two-stop strategy, Russell took a gamble by pitting only once. That stop came on lap 10, with the Mercedes star spending the rest nursing his aging hard tyres.

Remarkably though, despite Hamilton closing right onto the back of him, Russell was able to keep his car ahead, finishing just half a second ahead of his team-mate. Before the infraction on his car was spotted, it would have been the third win of his career.

It took more than two hours following the end of the race for the fuel mistake to be reported. That meant the Englishman was able to lift the first-place trophy on the podium.

"Amazing result, definitely didn’t predict this win this morning in our strategy meeting," he said before the mistake was found. "But the car was feeling really awesome and we made a lot of changes from Friday night and the tyres just felt great.

"I just kept saying, ‘I think we can do the one-stop, I think we can do the one-stop’ and the strategy did a really great job. Also well done to Lewis because he really controlled that race and if circumstances were slightly different I’m sure he’d have got the victory. But one-two for the team was such an awesome result and such a great way to go into the break.”