George Russell won hearts at Spa but couldn’t win the race. Well, his bold one-stop call deservedly helped him win the race, but the FIA disqualified him on finding his W15 was 1.5 kgs under the minimum weight of 798 kg. But because the Briton nursed the 34-lap-old Hard tires to the chequered flag in a race where only three other drivers attempted the same, he snatched an unofficial title that Sergio Perez carried for so long in F1.

From ‘Checo’ to ‘King of the Streets’, Perez has several nicknames. Before joining Red Bull, the ‘Mexican Minister of Defence’, another nickname for the Guadalajara-born driver, spent most of his F1 career driving for midfield teams. To compensate for the lack of the car’s speed, he learned to preserve his tires in pursuit of better results. This landed him another performance-earned title – ‘The Tire Whisperer’. However, in the ground-effect era (since 2022), where the bigger 18-inch tires were introduced, he has struggled. It was only a matter of time before he was stripped of the title.

Come the 2024 Belgian GP, George Russell’s heroic performance has finally done it. The 26-year-old was the first frontrunner to swap onto the Hard tires on Lap 10. Despite concluding his Medium tire stint earlier than his rivals, he perfectly managed the Hards to outlast everyone. Ecstasy cascaded out of him as he returned to the pits post-race. “Boys and girls, what a performance!” he exclaimed. After he thanked Mercedes for the “amazing strategy”, team boss Toto Wolff interrupted the radio. “Tire Whisperer”, the Austrian calmly said twice as Russell soaked up the atmosphere and his newfound nickname.

Could Perez losing his nickname be an ominous foreshadowing for his highly anticipated Red Bull exit? While we’ll leave that for Christian Horner & Co to decide, Russell’s masterclass cannot be overlooked. The FIA might’ve disqualified him but he proved to Mercedes, and the F1 world, that he’s ready to lead the team in 2025 when 7-time champion Lewis Hamilton departs.

George Russell explains his genius judgment behind defending P1 from Lewis Hamilton

Unparalleled driving genius is what George Russell displayed at the Belgian GP. Post-race, Toto Wolff revealed how he didn’t even think a one-stop strategy was possible. But because they had nothing to lose with their younger Briton, they backed his judgment. “The team sort of backed me up and put their faith in me to do the one-stop. And then obviously, you know, when you’re behind the wheel, you’ve got to deliver it and manage in certain corners, push in others,” Russell said, analyzing his win at Spa before the DQ.

The Mercedes driver then explained how he meticulously used the track’s characteristics to keep Hamilton behind. “And also, at the end, I knew Lewis was catching me. But I knew I needed to be quick in three corners, and that was the last two corners and the first one. I knew if I could save the tires in the middle sector and nail it in those three corners, it would be very difficult for Lewis to pass into Turn 5,” he explained, concluding it as a “team effort.”

Pre-disqualification, Russell had overtaken Perez in the drivers’ standings as well, taking P7. But after the stewards passed their “heartbreaking” judgment, as the Briton described it, he slid down to P8. The 1-2 turned 1-DQ result also hampers Mercedes‘ constructors’ standings, decreasing the gap to Ferrari by only 2 points for P3. Hopefully, the second half of the season, starting August 23 at the Dutch GP, treats Russell better.