After predicting rain for the second practice at the Belgian Grand Prix, the condition was still dry for the drivers to clock in some laps on the slicks.
After taking up a 10 place grid penalty for using up his four internal combustion engines (ICE) for the season, Max Verstappen has taken his fifth power unit component and led the first practice in Spa. The Dutchman further sat on top of the second free practice on medium compound tyres.
Once they started to clock some fast laps for practice before qualifying, the McLaren of Oscar Piastri went the quickest despite dipping into the gravel in turn seven.
Verstappen could not regain the lead trailing right behind Piastri by 0.002 seconds which soon widened when the other McLaren of Lando Norris took the lead, two tenths clear of everyone with a 1.42.260.
Qualifying will be important for Verstappen after his grid drop. However the reigning three-time champion admitted that it was difficult to find the most accurate balance.
https://x.com/F1/status/1816859073893020057
“We tried quite a few things because it’s typically Spa where you have sector one and sector three where you want the top speed but it’s still a very long middle sector where you want cornering speed and it’s still very tricky to find the right balance,”.
“So, we are trying a few things to see what is better and we’ll look at it of course now in the data and analyse. We started out quite positive today, second practice was perhaps not quite as good. We have a few things to look at, you know, with all the changes we made as well and hopefully we can put it all together for the race especially as I know at the moment I have to start a bit back with my penalty for the engine and try to optimise it."
"Naturally you always want a good qualifying but the most important is the race so that’s what we’ll focus on."
Sergio Perez was still having struggles with his car. This race could be the most important one for the Mexican after a run of poor form in the past few races. He finished ninth, nearly a second behind his teammate.
The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz took P4 and P5, Leclerc five tenths off the lead and Sainz two tenths behind the Monegasque.
Leclerc felt like his Friday was much more difficult than usual as the Scuderia were not able to understand the timings with different tyres and conditions.
“A very difficult day to understand, to be honest. A lot of difference of pace in different conditions and different tyres as well, so everybody was on a different plan."
“It’s been quite a few years now that it’s difficult to understand the picture on the Friday with those generation of cars, but today is even more so difficult.”
The Mercedes of George Russell came in sixth, a second off the pace setting time and Esteban Ocon took seventh, the Frenchman skipping FP1 after a water leak at the start caused him to not be able to clock any laps.
The Haas of Kevin Magnussen took eighth and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top 10 of the session.
Hamilton admitted Mercedes did not have a good hour as their pace was off the top team's pace. He also talked about how the changeable weather will help the Brackley outfit have a better Belgian Grand Prix.
"It was a pretty bad day. I don’t know what to say! Obviously it’s been feeling great in the past couple of races, it just felt completely different today."
“We worked on it, the first session was not great, but then in the second session we made some changes. It started off great, and then when I got to the soft tyre I just couldn’t improve, and there’s a bunch of balance issues we have through that."
“It was better in the session, but everyone else went even better, so to be 1.2 seconds behind is not great.”
“Fantastic! Because if it’s dry then we’re not going to – at the moment – be in the greatest of places, but overnight we can make some changes for sure."
“I think if it rains then that opens it up a little bit and hopefully we can do a better job, and I think the car should be better in the wet than it is in the dry.”
The Aston Martins were lined up right outside the top ten with Lance Stroll in eleventh and Fernando Alonso in twelfth, as the Sauber of Valtteri Bottas took P13.
The RBs of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda took P14 and P20 after a tough Friday.
Pierre Gasly took P15 in front of Nico Hulkenberg, the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant and Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu in nineteenth.
This wraps up the Friday of the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.
