F1 practice results: Max Verstappen fastest, then crashes in Spa

Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was fastest in FP1 and Verstappen pipped him in FP2, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc suffered a crash that caused a red flag.

Verstappen himself then crashed at Malmedy, damaging the right-rear corner of his car as he backed it into the tyrewall.

Belgian Grand Prix FP1 results: Bottas fastest from Verstappen

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	18	1'45.199			239.682
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	14	1'45.363	0.164	0.164	239.309
3	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	20	1'45.699	0.500	0.336	238.549
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	19	1'45.818	0.619	0.119	238.280
5	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	20	1'45.935	0.736	0.117	238.017
6	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	17	1'46.127	0.928	0.192	237.587
7	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	19	1'46.177	0.978	0.050	237.475
8	Lando Norris	McLaren	17	1'46.336	1.137	0.159	237.120
9	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	16	1'46.497	1.298	0.161	236.761
10	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	16	1'46.612	1.413	0.115	236.506
11	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	19	1'46.649	1.450	0.037	236.424
12	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	20	1'46.683	1.484	0.034	236.348
13	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	17	1'46.755	1.556	0.072	236.189
14	George Russell	Williams	19	1'46.772	1.573	0.017	236.151
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	19	1'46.928	1.729	0.156	235.807
16	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	20	1'47.101	1.902	0.173	235.426
17	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	15	1'48.125	2.926	1.024	233.196
18	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	17	1'48.224	3.025	0.099	232.983
19	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	16	1'48.705	3.506	0.481	231.952
20	Mick Schumacher	Haas	15	1'49.059	3.860	0.354	231.199
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 1?

After a rain-affected start to the session, Verstappen set the benchmark fastest time on hard-compound dry tyres halfway through at 1m46.879s and then lowered that to 1m46.423s and 1m45.905s on his long run. That put him over a second clear with 20 minutes remaining.

The soft-tyre runs were topped by Bottas, who set 1m45.199s to take away P1. Teammate Hamilton, meanwhile, hit traffic on his flying lap – almost being swiped off the track by Nicholas Latifi’s Williams on the approach to the Bus Stop chicane. Mercedes was back-to-back testing high and low downforce rear wings, and Hamilton complained he was “massively slow on the straights” using a larger wing – and he ended the session down in 18th.

Verstappen took P2 with 1m45.363s and was fastest overall through the middle sector but seemed to struggle through the final chicane.

Pierre Gasly took third for AlphaTauri, exactly half a second off Bottas’s pace, ahead of Leclerc, who almost fenced his Ferrari at Malmedy after a gravelly off. His teammate Carlos Sainz was fifth, ahead of the recently re-signed Sergio Perez (Red Bull).

One bizarre incident was Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen hitting the inside wall of the pitlane entry – “my bad” he admitted of damaging the left side of his car.

Belgian Grand Prix FP2 results: Verstappen fastest from Bottas

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	km/h
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	12	1'44.472			241.350
2	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	14	1'44.513	0.041	0.041	241.256
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	13	1'44.544	0.072	0.031	241.184
4	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	15	1'44.953	0.481	0.409	240.244
5	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	17	1'44.965	0.493	0.012	240.217
6	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	14	1'45.180	0.708	0.215	239.726
7	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	15	1'45.302	0.830	0.122	239.448
8	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	16	1'45.336	0.864	0.034	239.371
9	Lando Norris	McLaren	18	1'45.386	0.914	0.050	239.257
10	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	13	1'45.404	0.932	0.018	239.216
11	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Ferrari	14	1'45.517	1.045	0.113	238.960
12	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	17	1'45.758	1.286	0.241	238.416
13	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	16	1'45.789	1.317	0.031	238.346
14	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo	18	1'45.967	1.495	0.178	237.945
15	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	14	1'46.118	1.646	0.151	237.607
16	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	17	1'46.198	1.726	0.080	237.428
17	George Russell	Williams	14	1'46.665	2.193	0.467	236.388
18	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	13	1'46.836	2.364	0.171	236.010
19	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	14	1'47.335	2.863	0.499	234.913
20	Mick Schumacher	Haas	15	1'47.529	3.057	0.194	234.489
View full results

What happened in Free Practice 2?

After rain between the sessions, FP2 began on a damp track that was drying quickly.

Bottas set the pace on medium tyres after 20 minutes with a laptime of 1m44.513s, 0.614s faster than Verstappen, then Hamilton took P2 on 1m44.544s – 0.031s off his teammate. Verstappen improved on his second flyer, getting to within 0.084s of the pace – also on mediums.

Mercedes switched to the softs in time for the halfway point, with Hamilton not improving despite setting the fastest middle sector overall and Bottas also failed to beat his earlier time as Mercedes appeared to have its engines turned down.

Verstappen then unleashed 1m44.472s on softs to beat Bottas by 0.041s and Hamilton by 0.072s.

Recently re-signed Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest for Alpine on softs, albeit almost half a second off the pace. Hungarian GP-winning teammate Esteban Ocon suffered a huge spin at Fagnes without hitting anything.

The session was first halted with 15 minutes to go when Leclerc got sideways at Les Combes and couldn’t keep it out of the wall on the left-hand side, swiping off a front corner.

Soon after the session restarted, it required another red flag as Verstappen lost it at Malmedy and clipped the barrier with his right-rear corner. That incident ended the day’s running.

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