"I don't want to win a race through a disqualification", says Hamilton

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has offered his reaction to his team-mate George Russell's disqualification from the Belgian Grand Prix which saw him inherit the victory at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Having lacked pace during Friday's practice sessions, Mercedes driver George Russell had pulled off an unlikely win during Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps. The Briton started from P6 on the grid, and committing himself to a one-stop strategy, he took his third F1 win.

However, after the chequered flag, Russell’s car was found to be underweight, with the stewards subsequently excluding him from the results – meaning team mate Lewis Hamilton takes the win.

The result means that the seven-time world champion has now a total of 105 wins at the pinnacle of motorsport. However, he was disappointed that his team lost a one-two due to the technical infringement.

"It is of course disappointing for the team to lose the 1-2 but there are lots of positives to take away from today.

"The car was feeling good, and we had much better pace than we expected. There were several cars that seemed similar in terms of performance but once we had got ahead, we were able to maintain that position.

"We committed to the two-stop strategy and covered those directly behind us. George was able to make the one-stop work and, although I got close to him in the final few laps, I was unable to get past in the dirty air."

Although Mercedes started off the season as the fourth quickest team behind Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari, it has slowly crawled its way back to the sharp end of the field, having won three of the last four races. Hamilton labelled his car as "incredibly competitive" after his string of impressive race performances.

"I feel for George, and you don’t want to win a race through a disqualification, but we have been back in the fight for victories in the past few races.

"It is incredibly competitive now, so we will need to work hard to battle for wins more consistently. Nevertheless, we can go into the summer break with momentum and positivity," commented the seven-time world champion.