Photo: Jen Ross via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
Lewis Hamilton has won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, the 105th win of his Formula 1 career, after Mercedes team-mate George Russell was disqualified for an underweight car on Sunday, July 28.
Russell crossed the line first after gambling on a one-stop strategy, with Hamilton right behind him in a Mercedes one-two. About 90 minutes later the FIA announced that Russell's car had weighed in at 796.5kg once the remaining fuel was drained, 1.5kg below the 798kg minimum. The stewards disqualified him and Hamilton was promoted to the win, with Oscar Piastri second and Charles Leclerc third, Sky Sports reports.
Mercedes accepted the ruling and won't appeal. For Hamilton, 39, it is a second victory in three races heading into the summer break, and his second of the season. Three weeks ago he ended a 56-race winless run at Silverstone.
Hamilton went vegan in 2017, cutting out red meat first, then chicken, then fish, and he has credited the change for his form ever since. That year he told Motorsport.com, as reported by The Drive:
I feel the best I have ever felt, physically and mentally. All year I have felt strong mentally, but physically I have taken a big step and that is with the decision I have taken to change my diet.
Seven years and three more world titles later, he's still racing at the front in his late thirties. He has also said his health has "just got better and better" since going plant-based.
This win comes just weeks after Hamilton won a record ninth British Grand Prix, and before he swaps Mercedes for Ferrari, as Ferrari announced in February. In 2021 he became the first driver to win 100 Grands Prix, and back in 2019 he won his sixth world title and opened a plant-based burger chain.
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