The Englishman had headed a Mercedes one-two from Lewis Hamilton with Oscar Piastri third.

However, post-race scrutineering revealed his car was underweight by 1.5kg.

Referred to the stewards, Russell was subsequently excluded for the breach.

“The Stewards heard from the team representative of Car 63 (George Russell), the FIA Technical Delegate, the FIA Single Seater Director and the FIA Single Seater Technical Director,” the stewards’ summary outlined.”

“Car 63 was weighed on the FIA inside and outside scales with both scales showing the same result of 796.5 kg.

“The calibration of both scales was confirmed and witnessed by the competitor.

“During the hearing the team representative confirmed that the measurement is correct and that all required procedures were performed correctly.

“The team also acknowledged that there were no mitigating circumstances and that it was a genuine error by the team.

“The Stewards determine that Article 4.1 of the FIA Formula 1 Technical Regulations has been breached and therefore the standard penalty for such an infringement needs to be applied.

“Competitors are reminded that they have the right to appeal certain decisions of the Stewards, in accordance with Article 15 of the FIA International Sporting Code and Chapter 4 of the FIA Judicial and Disciplinary Rules, within the applicable time limits.”

Mercedes did roll back some upgrades following Friday’s practice, while the decision to stop Russell only once is another potential contributing factor to the car being underweight.

“We have to take our disqualification on the chin,” said team boss Toto Wolff in a statement issued shortly after Russell’s exclusion was confirmed.

“We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it.

“We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong.

“To lose a one-two is frustrating and we can only apologise to George who drove such a strong race.

“Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.

“Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend,” he added.

“We had a car that was the benchmark in today’s race across two different strategies.

“Only a few months ago, that would have been inconceivable.

“We had into the summer break having won three of the past four races.

“We will look to come back after shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory.”

With Hamilton the winner of the race, with Piastri second and Charles Leclerc third.

Daniel Ricciardo also benefits, moving up from 11th into the final points-paying position.

In championship terms, McLaren now trails Red Bull Racing by 42 points in the constructors’ championship, a net difference of a single point over the event’s provisional classification.