Max Verstappen dominated FP1 at the Belgian Grand Prix, finishing ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and well clear of his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.
On what is a high-pressure weekend for Perez given Red Bull’s intention to assess his position going forward towards 2025 over the summer break, he ended up nearly a full second down on Verstappen.
Elsewhere, Alex Albon showed Williams’ slippery package is again strong at Spa, while Lewis Hamilton complained of “bouncing” aboard his Mercedes during late race simulations.
After the Mercedes drivers led the pack out of the pits during what was overall a calm session for the field, Verstappen quickly established himself at the top of the order during the early running on the hard and medium tyres.
Verstappen’s 1m44.706s came on the hard tyres to just shade Hamilton’s first lap and from there the Red Bull driver chipped away at that time over the opening first quarter of the session to get down to a 1m44.524s over three fliers, round which the Dutchman had to produce the very slow cool-down tours all his rivals did too to control tyre temperatures.
A lull in action followed thereafter, with George Russell leading Hamilton in second and third at this stage, ahead of Piastri and Lando Norris (all running mediums) – before Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari between the McLaren cars with a late flier on the yellow-walled rubber before he too headed for the pits.
Russell then started the flying laps on the soft tyres, with the Briton toppling Verstappen with a 1m44.225s.
But the world champion was already set to go massively faster as he ran slightly adrift of the Mercedes on the red-walled rubber, with Verstappen blasting to a 1m43.372s that was never headed thereafter.
Piastri nudged Russell down to third with a time 0.706s slower for the Hungary winner, before he then improved on a second softs flier to end up 0.531s away from Verstappen.
After Perez put in a time nearly a second down on his team-mate – the Mexican driver regularly wrestling his car at corner entry and dipping his left-rear into the gravel at the last part of Les Combes – Albon jumped up the order for Williams.
Running offset to the rest, Albon produced the best times in the first and final thirds of the lap, to slot into third and demote Russell a further spot to fourth. He was trailed by Hamilton, Leclerc and Perez, with Norris, Carlos Sainz and Lance Stroll rounding out the top 10.
The pack concentrated on higher-fuel long running as the one-hour session wound down – the skies above clouded over compared to the sunny conditions with which FP1 had commenced.
Esteban Ocon missed almost the whole session aboard his upgraded, differently liveried Alpine after encountering a problem during his early practice start, with the team investigating a suspected water leak.
One of Perez’s potential replacements at Red Bull, Daniel Ricciardo, went from an early La Source-exiting spin to finishing 13th for RB, with his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda down in 16th and complaining about both understeer and oversteer.
Perez’s performance engineer, Richard Wood, was heard on Red Bull’s team radio through FP1, as the team opted to give race engineer experience to different staff on a temporary basis – as it did with Verstappen and his performance engineer Tom Hart standing in for Gianpiero Lambiase during the early practice sessions at Imola.
Belgian Grand Prix - Free Practice 1
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| Cla | Driver | # | Chassis | Engine | Laps | Time | Interval | km/h | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 |  M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing |
1 |  |
Red Bull | Red Bull | 23 |
1'43.372 |
243.919 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2 |  O. Piastri McLaren |
81 |  |
McLaren | Mercedes | 24 |
+0.531 1'43.903 |
0.531 | 242.672 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 3 |  A. Albon Williams |
23 |  |
Williams | Mercedes | 21 |
+0.727 1'44.099 |
0.196 | 242.215 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4 |  G. Russell Mercedes |
63 |  |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 23 |
+0.853 1'44.225 |
0.126 | 241.922 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | L. Hamilton Mercedes |
44 | |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 21 |
+0.907 1'44.279 |
0.054 | 241.797 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 6 |  C. Leclerc Ferrari |
16 |  |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 25 |
+0.934 1'44.306 |
0.027 | 241.734 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 7 |  S. Perez Red Bull Racing |
11 |  |
Red Bull | Red Bull | 22 |
+0.957 1'44.329 |
0.023 | 241.681 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | L. Norris McLaren |
4 |  |
McLaren | Mercedes | 24 |
+1.043 1'44.415 |
0.086 | 241.482 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 |  C. Sainz Ferrari |
55 |  |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 24 |
+1.202 1'44.574 |
0.159 | 241.115 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 |  L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing |
18 |  |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 20 |
+1.327 1'44.699 |
0.125 | 240.827 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11 |  P. Gasly Alpine |
10 |  |
Alpine | Renault | 22 |
+1.461 1'44.833 |
0.134 | 240.519 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12 | F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing |
14 |  |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 19 |
+1.549 1'44.921 |
0.088 | 240.317 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 13 | D. Ricciardo RB |
3 |  |
RB | Red Bull | 23 |
+1.578 1'44.950 |
0.029 | 240.251 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 14 |  V. Bottas Sauber |
77 |  |
Sauber | Ferrari | 21 |
+1.783 1'45.155 |
0.205 | 239.783 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 15 |  L. Sargeant Williams |
2 |  |
Williams | Mercedes | 20 |
+1.939 1'45.311 |
0.156 | 239.427 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 16 |  Y. Tsunoda RB |
22 |  |
RB | Red Bull | 23 |
+2.192 1'45.564 |
0.253 | 238.854 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 17 |  N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team |
27 |  |
Haas | Ferrari | 19 |
+2.273 1'45.645 |
0.081 | 238.671 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 18 |  K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team |
20 |  |
Haas | Ferrari | 19 |
+2.440 1'45.812 |
0.167 | 238.294 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 19 |  Z. Guanyu Sauber |
24 |  |
Sauber | Ferrari | 23 |
+2.623 1'45.995 |
0.183 | 237.882 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 20 | E. Ocon Alpine |
31 |  |
Alpine | Renault | 1 |
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