Practice report

F1 Belgian GP: Verstappen leads Piastri in FP1

Verstappen on top in opening Belgian GP practice for Red Bull ahead of Hungarian GP winner Piastri

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

1 - 2
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
View full results