Belgian GP: Max Verstappen stamps his authority in FP1 as Red Bull dial back on some updates

Max Verstappen shrugged off his Hungarian woes, and some of Red Bull’s upgrades, to blitz the competition in Friday’s opening practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman, quickest on the hard tyres and again on the softs, clocked a 1:43.372 to beat Oscar Piastri by 0.531 seconds. Alex Albon in the Williams was third.

Max Verstappen dominated FP1 at the Belgian Grand Prix

Despite the forecast for rain and showers earlier in the day, Friday’s opening practice hour got underway on a warm and dry Spa-Francorchamps circuit as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton led the field out onto the track in their upgraded W15 with its revised diffuser and floor edge.

Daniel Ricciardo did well to keep his VCARB away from the barriers in a spin at La Source, his set of hard Pirellis shot.

Max Verstappen, having dropped Red Bull’s Hungarian GP engine cover and cannons from his RB20 as they were cooling-specific changes, set the early pace with a 1:44.7, a second up on Oscar Piastri. Lewis Hamilton as P3.

But while the fast times were quick, the slow laps were very slow as the drivers engaged in the world’s slowest high-speed car traffic jam as they tried to cool their tyres between flying laps.

Hamilton: “This tyre doesn’t feel great. The others are quite quick now.”
Bono: “To Verstappen you were up sector 1 by a tenth. All that time [lost] is in the middle sector, so 1.1 in the middle.”
Hamilton: “I can’t get these temps down.”

Alas for Esteban Ocon his time out on track was cut short after just one lap due to a water leak that required Alpine to remove the floor of his A524. His session was over.

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Midway through the session Verstappen was P1 on the hard tyres with a 1:44.5, 0.474s up on George Russell with Hamilton third. The Mercedes team-mates were on the medium rubber.

Swapping to the soft tyres, Russell briefly went up into P1 but his time was blitzed by Verstappen by eight-tenths of a second despite a small moment.

In sharp contrast, Sergio Perez was complaining about his RB20 as he crossed the line just shy of a second slower than his team-mate.

F1’s newest race winner Piastri was back up into P2 but half a second off the pace of the Red Bull with Alex Albon in the Williams up to third place with 20 minutes to go.

Down in 12th place and 1.7s off the P1 time, Fernando Alonso asked Aston Martin if his engine was ” okay. How can we be slower in the first sector?”

Russell in fourth place reported “no rear end at all” while Hamilton, one place back in P5, said his “bouncing is really bad”. Yuki Tsunoda meanwhile had some “oversteer” as well as “understeer” with Logan Sargeant saying his tyres had gone through the “gauntlet”.

The session ended with Verstappen quickest of all on a 1:43.372, putting him half a second up on Piastri with Albon two-tenths back in third place.

Times

1 Max VERSTAPPEN 1:43.372
2 Oscar PIASTRI +0.531
3 Alexander ALBON +0.727
4 George RUSSELL +0.853
5 Lewis HAMILTON +0.907
6 Charles LECLERC +0.934
7 Sergio PEREZ +0.957
8 Lando NORRIS +1.043
9 Carlos SAINZ +1.202
10 Lance STROLL +1.327
11 Pierre GASLY +1.461
12 Fernando ALONSO +1.549
13 Daniel RICCIARDO +1.578
14 Valtteri BOTTAS +1.783
15 Logan SARGEANT +1.939
16 Yuki TSUNODA +2.192
17 Nico HULKENBERG +2.273
18 Kevin MAGNUSSEN +2.440
19 Guanyu ZHOU +2.623
20 Esteban OCON no time

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