The Friday in F1 Belgian GP saw dominance from Oscar Piastri to start the sprint weekend, as midfield teams made merry via the set-up choice.
For a change, it didn’t rain on Friday in F1 Belgian GP weekend at Spa-Francorchamps. The sunny weather allowed for a smooth running, as teams gambled with set-up choice, where many opted for skinny rear wing to gain extra speed on the straightline.
If it rains, it will be difficult to handle, but they have the chance to change to a different set-up after the sprint F1 race on Saturday morning. It was dominance from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri either way. At every possible run, the Australian looked to be in control against teammate Lando Norris.
The only blip was track limits in SQ2, but he bounced back well, as Norris was not sure why he was six tenths off Piastri. He played down it to be ‘just Friday things’. His drop allowed Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to separate the two after a goodish run despite the issues they have.
He managed to be ahead of Ferraris and the Mercedes pair by a good margin. Teammate Yuki Tsunoda felt a bit better, but still missed out on a SQ3 spot due to close margins. It was day of havles for Ferrari after Charles Leclerc was fourth and Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in SQ1.
The Monegasque felt the car to be good after the updates, but was surprised by the gap to McLaren. Hamilton, meanwhile, was shocked by abnormal spin by his standards. It is rare for the Brit to make such mistake. He is not sure what triggered it, but hopes Saturday to be better.
It was disaster for Mercedes. Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s spin in the gravel potentially damaged his car and cost him a spot outside SQ1, as teammate George Russell seemingly suffered due to the same gravel to be off pace and suffer a knocked out in SQ2.
Piastri: “It was a good lap. A little scare in SQ2 with the lap deletion, but the car’s been mega all day and I feel like I’ve been able to put in a lot of good laps. Thanks to the team, the car’s been great and this is a track I love. It’s my favourite one of the year and, I don’t know, maybe that gave me a couple of extra tenths! It’s always good fun around here, when the car’s handling as well as it is today it’s a pleasure. I don’t know [why we are fast off the blocks]. The car has been in a good window from Lap 1, and again it’s a track I always enjoy coming to and, yeah, I don’t know why.
“I think [I] had good confidence, I feel like the last few weekends have been good from a pace perspective but not so much from a results perspective, so it’s nice to get a result today. I need to go and look [for the race]. The Red Bulls were very quick in a straight line, in practice – I don’t know if it was the same in Sprint Qualifying, but that makes life difficult and Spa is probably the worst track to have pole position at! Let’s see and I’ll go have a look, but the pace in the car is really strong. I’ve felt good today so hopefully we can have a good race tomorrow.”
Verstappen: “Being P2 between them I think is a really good result for us and I do think we maximised. I enjoyed it out there, the lap itself was fine, was good. Of course the gap is very big but it’s been big already from FP1 so that’s not a big surprise. We just have to focus on ourselves and work on the balance of the car, try to go faster. When you’re almost five tenths off I don’t think going faster or slower on the straight is going to matter a lot. We just have to do our own race and see what we can do. It’s always difficult in a Sprint weekend to say exactly what they do of course but when you look at the gap, it’s not what we want right? But we keep improving, keep trying to find more performance but other teams do the same thing so that’s just how it goes.”
Norris: “Not quick enough, I guess, is the only thing. It wasn’t the cleanest of laps but still quite a big gap to the top. Not too disappointed, it’s third, it’s for the Sprint so not the biggest worry but, yeah, some things to work on. It’s impossible to say [if I ate too much tyre], maybe it made my tyres better. You don’t know those things, but we’ll look at it overnight. It’s just Friday so I’m not too fussed. Not the happiest of course, I would like to be a bit quicker than I was today. But it’s the way it is and I just have to do some more work tonight.”
Hamilton: “I spun. Yeah. The first time in my career. Tomorrow’s a new day. Obviously, I’m massively frustrated. A lot of work has gone in and to be there is not great. Hopefully, tomorrow is going to be better. I was on a strong lap when I suddenly had a big rear lock-up, which caught me off guard. We’re not entirely sure what triggered it, but we’ll go through the data with the team tonight and aim to make the most of what we’ve learned ahead of tomorrow.”
Russell: “In Q1, I ran over all of that gravel when Kimi went off. For the rest of that lap, it felt terrible, and the next lap, it felt terrible. Then my lap in SQ2 felt terrible. We saw some damage on the car. We need to see if that’s the reason, because obviously, it’s a big shock to be out in SQ2, and the gap was so big. I’m sure there’s a reason for it. The car felt good over the lap, so I’m definitely confident for tomorrow, and we’ll just try to reset and look forward to tomorrow.”
Antonelli: “It was actually a pretty decent lap. I was around P4, and it just was weird because I lost it completely on exit and I just need to check. Maybe it was a gust of wind, but it was quite weird, the way I lost the car. It’s going to be important tomorrow to do a good quali, and then Sunday might be wet, so a lot of opportunities, but we’ll focus on tomorrow [for now].”
The drop for the likes of Hamilton, Antonelli, Russell and Tsunoda, allowed multiple cars in the Top 10, which included both the Haas machineries. After their bad outing in Silverstone, it was a fine recovery by Esteban Ocon in fifth, to be the best of the rest, as Oliver Bearman backed him up in seventh.
They reckon the update in Silverstone helped them to be better in Spa-Francorchamps. It was a surprise from Williams’ Carlos Sainz to be sixth after a troubled start in FP1. He changed his power unit elements, but majorly had a troubled-free run in sprint F1 qualifying, to make it in the Top 10.
Teammate Alexander Albon faced issues at the same time to be knocked out in SQ1. It was same at Alpine and Sauber, respectively, with Pierre Gasly and Gabriel Bortoleto in the Top 10 but Franco Colapinto and Nico Hulkenberg getting knocked out in SQ1.
The Frenchman changed his set-up after FP1 which made the difference, while the Argentine didn’t find enough grip. The Brazilian, meanwhile, felt good straight up, but the German had traffic issues. Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar was in the Top 10, but wasn’t able to properly utilise the soft tyre run.
Teammate Liam Lawson was equally fast but marginally missed out on Top 10. The Aston Martin pair of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were knocked out in SQ2 as well, where the Spaniard felt they maximised in SQ1 and others caught up well by the time they locked in for the Top 10 fight.
Ocon: “It was awesome out there, I’m really happy. Well done to the whole team, we had two weeks to try and find out what went wrong in Silverstone as the car was difficult to drive, even though the update was in the right direction. Today, we transformed the car and it felt very good. It also feels amazing to have both cars in SQ3 – the first of the year – and we know it’s Sprint Quali so we need to take care and do it again tomorrow.”
Sainz: “I’m happy with P6 today. It was a big turnaround from the team and myself after missing half of FP1, so it was good to get some decent laps in during SQ. We also have some updates on the car which I still need to properly understand in order to fine tune the set-up but, overall, when everything goes to plan, we can better show our pace. Hopefully tomorrow we can keep building through the weekend!”
Gasly: “We will definitely take that result today and I am happy with our turnaround on a busy Friday. We struggled a little in Practice so we changed the set-up between the sessions and took some downforce off the car in order to maximise straight line speed. We had to hang on in the middle sector as a result but that is part of the challenge at Spa, finding the right balance. So, I am very pleased with the work we did as a team between the two sessions to turn things around. We squeezed into Q1 – maybe fortunate with the yellow flag for Lewis [Hamilton] at the end of the session – but that is how it goes sometimes. Then it was a really good lap in Q2 to reach Q3 and, in the end, eighth on the grid for the Sprint. We will go for it tomorrow and aim to come away with points.”
Hadjar: “It was a good day here in Spa. In SQ3, we had our first attempt on the softs as we didn’t use them this morning. I didn’t really enjoy that lap as I felt more confident on the mediums, and that’s a shame, as I feel like there was definitely more than a P9. Looking at tomorrow, though, I think there’s an opportunity to maybe score points in the Sprint and then it will be important to qualify high in the afternoon for Sunday’s race.”
Bortoleto: “I’m really happy to have made it into SQ3 today: of course, this is Sprint Qualifying, but the feeling of making it through is always good. The car felt solid throughout the session – I feel I could have even squeezed out something more in SQ3. But overall, it was a strong qualifying performance, and getting into the top ten is always encouraging. The car seems strong, so now we will need to see how the race pace holds up tomorrow. If we put everything together, we should be able to fight for those same positions in the next sessions.”
Alonso: “It is always nice to come back to such an iconic track. The weather stayed dry, and SQ1 turned out to be our strongest session. We were right on the limit, and I gave it everything I had. Unfortunately, we couldn’t carry that pace into SQ2. We were able to test the new front wing, which gave us more downforce. We will continue to keep learning from this new configuration in tomorrow’s Sprint race and across the rest of the weekend.”
Albon: “We had an issue which we thought we’d fixed after FP1, but we were losing a lot of lap time on the straights in Sprint Qualifying, so we will need to try something different to resolve it. We generally have a good car which seems quick around this circuit, so I’m still optimistic about the weekend.”
Here’s how F1 Belgian GP sprint qualifying panned out
