Valtteri Bottas celebrated his birthday by setting the benchmark in the first practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix for Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton by just 0.069s, when dark clouds descended on Spa-Francorchamps on Friday. Max Verstappen finished third, just 0.012s behind Hamilton.
The Finn turned 31 today and came out swinging in FP1 at Spa, putting a fastest lap of 1m44,493 on soft tires – the same compound used by every driver in the top-10 to complete their respective flying laps. to set. A late shutdown led to a pun for the session leader, who joked, “I’m getting used to these punches – I also had one on my road car last week,” because his session ended with five minutes left.
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Short runs of soft ties began with just over 30 minutes left in the session, and Hamilton could not match Bottas’ time, a mistake in sector three that stopped the defending champion. Verstappen’s very impressive time – he was just 0.012s behind Hamilton’s second Mercedes – put him ahead of both Racing Points as the Dutchman decided to put the 2019 Lap 1 pension at this race behind him.
Sergio Perez in fourth place was the fastest driver of Racing Point, just 0.136s from top spot. Teammate Lance Stroll was still two-tenths of Perez, and finished the top five.
In contrast, it was a worrying session for Ferrari, who finished fastest 14th and 15th – only ahead of the two Williams in terms of the cars setting a representative lap in the session.
|
1 Valtteri Bottas BOT Mercedes |
1: 44,493 |
|
2 Lewis Hamilton HAM Mercedes |
+ 0.069s |
|
3 Max Step away VER Red Bull Racing |
+ 0.081s |
|
4 Sergio Perez MAY Racing Point |
+ 0.136s |
|
5 Lance Walk STR Racing Point |
+ 0.375s |
Alex Albon made his debut for Red Bull on this track in 2019 and started the weekend just over half a second from his teammate for a P6 finish in FP1.
In a row, Renault and McLaren occupied P7 to P10 with Esteban Ocon fastest of the quartet, six tenths of the top spot. Behind him was McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who shook off a brief DRS problem to finish off P8, then Daniel Ricciardo in P9 and Lando Norris in P10 – repeating how close the midfield battle has been, and will be, this season.
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AlphaTauri duo Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly were 11th and 12th respectively, with Kimfa Raikkonen of Alfa Romeo an impressive 13th.
It meant Ferrari had a disappointing start to the weekend. Charles Leclerc won this race for the Scuderia last year, but today he could only manage the 14th fastest and 1,266s of P1. His teammate Sebastian Vettel was 15th, 1,686s from top spot, on the first day of what appeared to be a difficult event for the team.
FP1 Highlights: Belgian Grand Prix 2020
Williams’ Nicholas Latifi finished 16th, his teammate George Russell just behind in 17th and more than two seconds off P1.
None of the Haas rulers set a time after Romain Grosjean encountered power problems on his early run. Both he and Kevin Magnussen were kept in the garage without setting a time in FP1 when Haas examined their Ferrari power units. Antonio Giovinazzi of Alfa Romeo also put in no time, with unexplained problems.
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Lewis Hamilton has not won the Belgian Grand Prix since 2017 and will be looking to break what can be seen as something of a drought, given his relentless bid to win the Grand Prix. However, Bottas and Verstappen will do their utmost to stop him, and got off to a great start, given their FP1 times. Both are looking for a first Belgian Grand Prix win on Sunday – although with rainy expectations anything can happen when the lights are out …
