Valtteri Bottas set the pace in Practice 1 while Max Verstappen led Practice 2. The Dutchman appears to be closer to the Mercedes than usual with the Red Bull showing strong downforce performance. Daniel Ricciardo pulled out a superb lap to take a 2nd place while Ferrari’s woes have now extended to all of the Ferrari powered cars.
Friday Practice Report
Rain has been predicted throughout the weekend and many cars were keen to make the most of any dry running. However, both sessions remained clear and the teams managed to collect a huge amount of data. Dry weather is expected for Qualifying but rain is still predicted throughout the race on Sunday afternoon. The sessions were reasonably incident free, barring a red flag late in FP2 as an advertising board fell on to the track.
Vatteri Bottas celebrated his 31st Birthday with the fastest time in FP1. He finished 0.069 ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who made a mistake during sector 3 of his final run. In FP2 however, the two Mercedes played second fiddle to Max Verstappen and a storming Daniel Ricciardo. Toto Wolff claimed that the track might have been ‘too cold’ for the silver arrows, an issue which may persist throughout the weekend.
Max Verstappen continued his stunning form, only 0.012 away from Lewis Hamilton in FP1. He took to the top of the standings early in FP2 and remained there. Finishing top by 0.048. His car was clearly the fastest throughout sector 2 and he will be looking to achieve a 6th consecutive podium finish come raceday. Alex Albon is yet to look completely comfortable in the Red Bull, finishing half a second from Verstappen in FP1 and behind both Racing Point cars. Albon would finish 4th in the later session, but was still almost 4 tenths behind his team-mate. Racing Point looked strong as Perez managed two top 6 finishes. Lance Stroll also managed a 5th place finish in FP1, but fell back to 11th in FP2. The pink cars looked incredibly comfortable in the faster sectors and both drivers will be looking to finally break into the top 3.
Renault and Mclaren have reignited their tense battle, with each of the teams swapping positions throughout both sessions. However, Renault managed to get the upper hand as Daniel Ricciardo stormed to 2nd in FP2. However, he suffered a mechanical issue and had to retire with 20 minutes left. Renault also brought in Esteban Ocon’s car as a precaution. Mclaren still managed to get both cars in the top 10 in both sessions and it seems that they are hiding their true performance.
The rest of the track is incredibly close together. But worryingly for Ferrari, their cars occupied most of the lower half of the grid. Spa is renowned for being a power track and the deficit between engine suppliers has never been clearer. In FP1 both Haas cars and Antonio Giovinazzi failed to set a time, while the Ferrari works outfit were the 3rd and 4th slowest times set. This did not improve in FP2 as 6 of the bottom 8 cars were powered by Ferrari engines. The only other 2 cars being Williams, who seemed to struggle with the downforce set up on their cars. However, George Russell did manage to finish in front of Sebastian Vettel in FP2.
It is common knowledge that Mercedes normally sandbag quite significantly during Friday’s running. However, the FP2 result may have started to ruffle a few feathers in the Mercedes garage. If it is true that the car is not handling well with the cold weather, the weekend may throw up a few surprises.
FP1 Results:
- Bottas 1:44.493
- Hamilton +0.069
- Verstappen +0.081
- Perez +0.136
- Stroll +0.375
- Albon +0.556
- Ocon +0.606
- Sainz +0.729
- Ricciardo +0.732
- Norris +0.781
- Kvyat +0.954
- Gasly +1.010
- Raikkonen +1.211
- Leclerc +1.266
- Vettel +1.686
- Latifi +1.995
- Russell +2.077
- Magnussen – No Time
- Grosjean – No Time
- Giovinazzi – No Time
FP2 Results:
- Verstappen 1:43.744
- Ricciardo +0.048
- Hamilton +0.096
- Albon +0.390
- Perez +0.393
- Bottas +0.418
- Norris +0.424
- Ocon +0.464
- Sainz +0.730
- Gasly +0.856
- Stroll +0.934
- Kvyat +1.082
- Giovinazzi +1.117
- Raikkonen +1.152
- Leclerc +1.696
- Russell +1.719
- Vettel +1.939
- Latifi +2.030
- Grosjean +2.090
- Magnussen +2.498
Featured Image Credit: @F1 Official Twitter
