Belgian GP: Raikkonen pips Hamilton in FP1

The Ferrari driver pipped title contenders Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel to top spot in the opening session, though had to use ultrasoft tyres to defeat the soft-shod Hamilton.

Force India's Esteban Ocon spent the opening half an hour of the session quickest, as he was the only driver to have completed a flying lap when Felipe Massa crashed after 15 minutes.

Massa ran wide across the gravel at the exit of Malmedy, the Turn 7 right-hander after Les Combes, and crunched the front left of his Williams into the tyre barrier.

The session was stopped for 10 minutes and when running resumed Ocon's 1m48.962s was swiftly beaten by teammate Sergio Perez and Raikkonen, before Daniel Ricciardo and Hamilton started posting more representative lap times.

Ricciardo made good use of ultrasoft tyres to post a 1m46.656s, but Hamilton soon made P1 his own.

He went quickest just before the 90-minute session's halfway mark on a 1m46.439s on supersoft tyres, and went almost a second faster in the final half an hour on softs.

He had to abort his first flying lap on softs when Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas suffered an odd trip into the gravel on the exit of the Turn 11/12 chicane before Stavelot.

Bottas appeared to be getting out of the way of a McLaren on the right-hand side and dipped a wheel off-track, which caused him to slide across the gravel and lightly bump the tyre barrier.

As he slowly got his Mercedes out of trouble and back to the pits, Hamilton stayed out on the same set of tyres and pumped in a 1m45.555s to leap a second clear of Ricciardo.

Vettel made a late switch to ultrasoft tyres and fell a tenth short of Hamilton, but when Raikkonen made the same change with five minutes to go he edged ahead of Hamilton by 0.053s.

Max Verstappen used his ultrasofts to jump ahead of Ricciardo with 20 minutes remaining, as the Red Bull ended up 0.8s slower than Raikkonen.

Bottas's error consigned him to sixth, ahead of Carlos Sainz, Ocon, Daniil Kvyat and Stoffel Vandoorne.

McLaren driver Vandoorne joined Hamilton and Sauber's Marcus Ericsson in trialling the controversial halo cockpit protection device at the start of FP1, with Vandoorne and Hamilton returning to the pits at the end of their out-lap while Ericsson continued onto a second.

Fernando Alonso's return to F1 track action in the second McLaren lasted just five minutes before he suffered a fresh bout of Honda engine woe.

The Spaniard is running an updated internal combustion engine this weekend, but he reported "no power" on his out-lap and crawled back to the pits.

He emerged soon after the red flag and, despite his DRS shutting off "sluggishly", found enough reliability to set the 13th-fastest time.

Cla	Driver	Chassis	Engine	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	Ferrari	13	1'45.502
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	19	1'45.555	0.053
3	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	Ferrari	13	1'45.647	0.145
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	TAG	18	1'46.302	0.800
5	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	TAG	22	1'46.352	0.850
6	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	Mercedes	20	1'46.424	0.922
7	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso	Renault	22	1'47.446	1.944
8	Esteban Ocon	Force India	Mercedes	27	1'47.670	2.168
9	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	Renault	20	1'47.851	2.349
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	Honda	18	1'47.865	2.363
11	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	Renault	14	1'47.930	2.428
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	Renault	15	1'48.037	2.535
13	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	Honda	18	1'48.252	2.750
14	Sergio Perez	Force India	Mercedes	19	1'48.452	2.950
15	Lance Stroll	Williams	Mercedes	24	1'48.541	3.039
16	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari	20	1'48.615	3.113
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	Ferrari	20	1'48.626	3.124
18	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	Ferrari	21	1'50.160	4.658
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	Ferrari	13	1'51.263	5.761
20	Felipe Massa	Williams	Mercedes	3