Belgian Grand Prix – Free Practice: McLaren circles Max Verstappen at the top of the timesheets

It was under sunny and warm weather conditions that this sole and unique free practice session of the Belgian Grand Prix of Formula 1 took place. With the Sprint race weekend in mind, the teams and their drivers don’t want to waste time and quickly hit the track.

Drivers who do not hesitate to test their limits from the first laps with several errors, notably for Lewis Hamilton or Gabriel Bortoleto at the Combes braking zone. Others attempt to delay their braking at the Source corner with several slides, including those of the two McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

At mid-session, it’s Charles Leclerc who is at the top of the time sheets. The two Ferraris are debuting a new rear suspension this weekend at Spa, which is supposed to help the Italian team reduce the gap with McLaren. Many laps from the Maranello team to test this major new feature on the SF-25 since the beginning of the year.

On the Red Bull side, where Laurent Mekies is directing his first session as Team Principal of the Austrian team in Belgium, the engineers have chosen to apply little downforce on the wing to have an advantage in the first and third sectors of the track, which feature long straights. This comes at a cost in the second, more winding sector, with lap times about half a second slower than the leaders for Max Verstappen.

With the exception of a few drivers, they are all on track a few minutes before the end of the session. Oscar Piastri improves his best time in his last lap with a 1:42.022, four-tenths ahead of Verstappen and half a second ahead of his teammate Lando Norris. George Russell and Charles Leclerc complete the Top 5 ahead of Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton, the Aston Martins of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, and then Isack Hadjar who rounds out the Top 10.