The leader of Red Bull’s Formula One championship, Max Verstappen, finished third and was given a 10-place grid penalty. Lando Norris, who leads his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in practice, was fastest overall at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Red Bull chose to accept the penalty for using a fifth engine at Spa, a track where passing is simpler than on other courses and where the three-time champion took first place two years ago.
This time, though, Verstappen will have his work cut out for him as McLaren brings their Hungarian form to Belgium. Piastri won his first Formula One Grand Prix last weekend, holding off Norris. Verstappen hasn’t won in three races.
Though Piastri’s comeback to take the lead was partly due to Norris’s tardiness in following instructions from the team, the two have obviously moved past that setback, as Norris recorded the fastest time of one minute and 42.260 seconds.
Despite finishing eighth in the first practice session, Norris—who is currently second in the drivers’ championship—surpassed his teammate Piastri’s impressive time to finish 0.215 seconds ahead of him in the second session.
Verstappen finished the day just behind Piastri and 0.217 seconds behind Norris, despite setting the fastest time in the earlier session—one minute and 43.372 seconds.
Charles Leclerc went from sixth to fourth in the second practice, while Carlos Sainz went from ninth to fifth. These moves helped Ferrari overtake Mercedes’s pairing of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
With Hamilton, the four-time Belgian Grand Prix winner, dropping from fifth to 10th in the opening session, Russell fell from fourth to sixth place, trailing Norris by 1.259 seconds.
The Haas driver for the upcoming season, Esteban Ocon, experienced serious problems with his Alpine car. He only managed to finish one lap of the first practice due to a suspected water leak, but he still managed to finish with the seventh fastest time of the day.
While Sergio Perez continues to struggle for Red Bull, Kevin Magnussen of Haas posted the eighth fastest time and finished the day in ninth place, more than a second slower than Verstappen and 1.244 off Norris. Magnussen is still without a drive for next year.
While it did not rain on Saturday (NZT), it is predicted to rain on Sunday at Spa during the final practice and qualification round. Due to his engine penalty, Yuki Tsunoda of RB will begin the race from the back of the grid on Monday.