George Russell’s disqualification at the Belgian Grand Prix could well be the most significant failure of his career.

The Mercedes driver may have delivered his best performance in Formula 1 by finishing first, but that result was taken away from him because he was found to be underweight.

His Mercedes was 1.5kg underweight after the fuel was pumped out of his car, which meant he was struck from the results. It was a slam dunk penalty and an understandable blow for the 26-year-old who appeared to have defied expectations by executing a daring one-stop strategy.

But rather than blame himself for making a misjudgement (which, remarkably, was a collective mistake and not just his team’s fault), he admitted that he had kept a positive attitude by putting the helmet he wore at Spa away with the two helmets from his other ‘victories’ in Sao Paulo and Austria.

“I’ve been pushing the team for a long time to keep pushing the boundaries,” he said. “If you take a margin in everything you do, you’ll never get disqualified. You’ll never make a mistake when you’re driving. You’ll never spin off. But you’ll never know what the true potential is.

“Of course it’s very frustrating that the only time in three years that we were just under the weight limit was the race that we won. But you know, there’s no hard feelings because we’re in this together and it’s going to make us stronger for the future.

“I lost 25 points, but in my mind it’s still a win. I kept my helmet and it’s going to be on my nightstand, along with my other two wins. Those celebrations I had with the team at that moment afterward were some of the best feelings of my career. So I’m only going to take positives from what happened.”

George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, arrives at the circuit

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

He added: “Nobody can take that feeling away from me, when I crossed the finish line, celebrated with my team and stood on the podium.

“If I had been in a championship fight this year, it would have been a much bigger blow for us, those 25 points. But unfortunately we are not quite there yet.”

Russell’s approach is different to that of Lando Norris, who has often struggled after missed opportunities. The McLaren driver has a tendency to dwell on the negativity when he has seen an opportunity slip through his grasp.

Obviously it’s a matter of which approach works best for a driver, but it’s clear that Russell’s response is another example of his growing maturity as he develops into the Mercedes team’s new team principal.

If Lewis Hamilton leaves for Ferrari at the end of the season, it will leave a void. Mercedes already knew that, but Russell is proving to the rest of us that he is perfectly capable of filling that void and leading the team forward with his actions and his mentality.

He shows a maturity that extends beyond his 26 years, which could be crucial to the development of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the rookie expected to become his teammate for 2025.

Moreover, he can now also show this with his excellent performances on the track, as his ‘victory’ in Spa proved.