Ferarri beats out Mercedes, while Alfa Romeo and Red Bull had issues.
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium—August 30th—Coming back from three weeks of a summer break worked well in Friday practice for both Ferraris of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc. Those two had the fastest times in the morning and afternoon sessions, respectively, at Spa–Francorchamps in preparation for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Belgium.
Leclerc had the best lap of the two, setting a 1:44:123 fastest time, as the Monegasque and his German teammate stayed ahead of the favored Mercedes duo of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton. Those two finished in the next two positions in third and fourth, respectively.
Kimi Raikkonen, who complained the day before of a pulled muscle in his leg, nevertheless came to the circuit without any mishaps, taking seventh by the end of the day. The big disappointment was Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo reserve driver Marcus Ericsson. Ericsson had to break off his Indy car racing duties to come to Belgium to not drive at all.
One team that was expected to do well at Spa–namely, Red Bull Racing–did not. Max Verstappen complained all day of a lack of power in his Honda engine, and could not get any better than sixth on the grid–1.2 seconds behind the two Ferraris. His new teammate, Alex Albon, had the same issues, finishing tenth overall. To make things worse for the Thai, he will now have to be demoted to the back of the grid due to an engine change scheduling.
Racing Point had a great Friday practice with both Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez finishing eighth and fifth, respectively. But both drivers had incidents at the end of the day.
Towards the end of the final session, Stroll could smell something burning in his cockpit. The Canadian headed quickly into the pits to locate the problem. Once there, his team could not find the issue. Perez, meanwhile, had an engine failure in sector two, just minutes before the end of the day. It resulted in a virtual safety car session, followed quickly by a red flag, with 1:30 left in the period. And with Perez’s car near the fastest part of the circuit, marshals decided to run the remaining time out.
Of the rest of the top ten, Daniel Ricciardo also added his name to the list, finishing ninth in his Renault.
The weather, which is normally cold and rainy during the race weekend here, is just the opposite–with sunny skies expected for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday, though, a cloudy day could make for a different day at this famous circuit.
