Two red flags punctuated the key second practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix, but even these dual interruptions couldn’t prevent Andrea Kimi Antonelli from locking in top spot on the time sheet by the end of the day.
Mercedes is expected to do well this weekend at a track that rewards downforce efficiency and good usage of the hybrid motor, two apparent strengths of the German marque’s car.
First practice, though, appeared to paint a picture of struggle. Antonelli was sixth and more than half a second off the pace, while teammate George Russell mustered just eighth.
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There was no doubt after the second practice session, however. Antonelli made good on all the pre-weekend promise by firing in the best time of the day even as drivers lost almost a third of the session to red flags.
“We made several changes to the car that improved things,” he said. “That gives us a positive direction to follow as we head into the rest of the weekend.
“There is still lots of work for us to do both in terms of set-up and also with my driving.
“After today, we can be confident of getting ourselves in the fight at the front.”
Antonelli can be confident, at least. Teammate George Russell was obliterated, lapping almost 1.3 seconds off the pace as he scrambles to match the championship leader — more on that below.
While Russell’s struggles are somewhat predictable given the trend of the season, unexpected was the company Antonelli was keeping at the front of the field.
Lando Norris was his closest challenger at a circuit McLaren expected to be painful for its underdeveloped car.
There are also question marks over Red Bull Racing and Ferrari, both of which looked threatening in FP1 but somewhat less convincing in the second session.
Super-long Spa-Francorchamps offers more opportunities for mistakes but also more chances to get things spectacularly right.
Are we set for a surprise on Saturday?
Antonelli fastest at Belgian practice GP | 01:01
NORRIS GIVES McLAREN HOPE — WITH SOME BIG ASTERISKS
Norris lapped just 0.19 seconds off Antonelli’s pace in FP2. At the longest track of the calendar, that’s comfortably within striking distance.
Not that it excited Norris, though. Though the Briton praised a good step between practice sessions, he was practically downcast about his odds in qualifying and the race.
“There have been quite a few times throughout the season where we seem good in FP2 and we’re off come qualifying,” he said.
“Red Bull normally just don’t turn up on Friday, so we’re going to get to tomorrow and they’ll be just as quick, if not quicker. Let’s just wait and see. I think we probably turned up with Mercedes and the rest of them didn’t, so I think we’re probably still fourth fastest.”
McLaren expected to struggle in Spa just as it did in Silverstone two weeks ago given both are tracks that make similar high-speed demands of the car and engine — and the team’s home British Grand Prix was one of its least competitive weekends of the year.
“We’ve not really changed anything this weekend [compared to Silverstone], so there’s no reason for us to expect anything different,” Norris said.
“But it seems like if we can get things right, then we might be a little bit closer than we were in Silverstone, so let’s wait and see.”
There are some asterisks to consider beyond general pessimism.
The first is that Norris’s lap was built partially on topping the middle sector, which indicates he’s carrying more downforce. This track demands a compromise between low and high downforce, but whereas higher downforce usually leads to a slightly quicker lap time, it leaves a driver defenceless in the race to cars that are faster in a straight line.
McLaren’s pace might be completely genuine, but that might not mean much on race day — and that question is doubly salient given the race simulations were interrupted by Gasly’s crash.
That said, with straight-line mode available down virtually every straight at this track, the balance between downforce and top speed could be different this year — one of the interesting unknowns in this first season of the new rules.
Piastri responds to rumours | 01:14
WHAT HAPPENED TO PIASTRI?
We also don’t have Oscar Piastri as a useful comparison after the Australian suffered technical problems in FP1 that bled into FP2.
The 2025 Belgium winner was the quicker McLaren driver in the first session but had to limp back to pit lane with a hydraulic issue. It forced a gearbox change that took until around 20 minutes into FP2 to complete.
He had just one timed lap before bolting on his soft tyres, which he used to lap 0.792 seconds slower than Norris.
That gap was almost entirely between the fearsome Pouhon downhill double-left and the Fagnes chicane, where telemetry suggests he’s lacking electrical power.
He has more power relative to Norris in the final sector, but it seemed to count for less down those long straights.
Understanding where to recharge and deploy was one of the key challenges between practice sessions. Antonelli started FP1 with electrical deployment that looked more like Piastri’s but ended up looking more like Norris’s, using his energy in the middle sector.
“He’s still therefore got some opportunity in FP3 to optimise set-up and certainly optimise deployment for the upcoming sessions,” technical director Neil Houldey said.
“Oscar often starts just a little bit more slowly than Lando and builds up. Although this will make it a little bit harder, he’ll be there or thereabouts come P3 and certainly come qualifying.”
Cam Waters aiming for the Championship? | 01:03
RUSSELL WAY OFF THE PACE AS STRUGGLE CONTINUES
There were fewer excuses for Russell, who was left in a spin almost 1.3 seconds off the pace of his practice-topping teammate.
Even at such a long circuit, it’s a remarkable gap given the Briton got in his full allocation of laps around the red flags.
His quest to build momentum was hampered by the team misreading the grip levels in FP1, which kept both drivers down the order, while in FP2 he complained that the tyres didn’t seem to be in the right temperature window, which left him shipping time to his teammate throughout the lap, especially from the second sector onwards.
That said, around 0.4 seconds of that margin seems to be down to Russell cutting the throttle a long way before the finish line. This is a trick Mercedes is exploiting to keep the battery deploying for longer when it is otherwise required to ramp down deployment, but it requires the drivers to lift off the throttle completely just before they run out of power exiting the last corner.
Either Russell misjudged the moment — although reportedly the Mercedes drivers are cued with a tone in their earpieces — or he ran out of power early, notwithstanding the front straight follows the big battery-boosting braking zone of the Bus Stop chicane.
The latter explanation might better tally with the rest of the lap, though.
It’s clear Russell is getting less out of his engine than Antonelli.
Unlike in Silverstone, where the Briton said an engine problem was leaving him down on straight-line speed, this week it’s clearly about deployment.
They’re fairly closely matched down the Kemmel straight, but the difference really emerges through the middle sector, where Antonelli is obviously more confident in the car.
It keeps his average speed higher, which means he’s wasting less electrical power to accelerate out of the corners.
That’s emerged as a key difference between the drivers all year. That lack of confidence would always lead to a time deficit, but it’s exacerbated by the effect it has on battery charge.
But it does demonstrate clearly what Russell needs to do to make fast inroads into Antonelli’s advantage.
“[The result] is not representative of what he is capable of,” said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. “He only had one go at it, and we can see several areas where he will extract more time as we head into the weekend.”
But it’s been easier said than done all season.
Kostecki DOMINATES in Townsville | 01:11
RED BULL RACING AND FERRARI BOTH COY ON CHANCES
Max Verstappen would have been pleased to get away from the microphones and into the cockpit on Friday. After a fortnight of rumours about his plans for 2027, he could finally get on with the preferred part of his job.
He became the first driver not racing for Mercedes or Ferrari to top an FP1 session, and though he faded a little in FP2, to 0.472 seconds off the pace, some analyses of the disrupted long-run simulations suggested the Red Bull Racing car was competitive.
Certainly the Dutchman sounded pleased.
“Pretty decent, I think,” was his summary of the day. “The balance is there straight away — I’m just finetuning a little bit with the car, which hopefully unlocks a little bit more pace.
“Honestly, I think from what we have as a package, it’s been a good day.
“I’m not sure how much more there is in there compared to the others, but for me, feeling-wise it’s been alright. In the second practice you see a little bit more what the real gap is probably, but hopefully we can eke out of that a little bit towards qualifying.”
The three-time Belgium winner — including once from as low as 14th on the grid — clearly shouldn’t be discounted.
But just as is the case with McLaren, there’s a question mark over where Ferrari will end up in the order, having appeared off the pace by the end of Friday.
Hamilton was 0.747 seconds adrift, while Charles Leclerc was a whopping 1.524 seconds off the pace.
This, however, is on brand for Ferrari even on its best weekends.
In Barcelona, where Hamilton dominated, he ended the second practice session 1.2 seconds off the pace.
Leclerc was 0.6 seconds off the pace in the sole practice session at the British Grand Prix before winning the race, albeit Hamilton had been quickest.
“If you have a look at the last four or five rounds, the classification on Friday is not really representative,” Ferrari boss Frédéric Vasseur said, though he added, “We have a lot of work to do.”
Hamilton said there were some clear areas to improve to close the gap.
“The car feels pretty decent, but we’re lacking a little bit in the middle sector for some reason,” he said. “We’re just looking into why that is, and we’ll see if we can pick that up tomorrow.
“The gap seems a bit bigger today, at least in FP2, than anticipated, but hopefully we can try and close that tomorrow. Overall we generally feel good.”
Marc Marquez rules Sachsenring | 00:49
ALONSO LOOKING FORWARD TO THE WORLD CUP, NOT THE RACE
The last time a Formula 1 grand prix was held on the same day as the FIFA World Cup final was 2010.
Spain won the match. An Australian — Mark Webber — won the British Grand Prix.
It’s the former more than the latter that has Spaniard Fernando Alonso thinking about things other than racing this weekend.
“The main focus on Sunday will be to get home and watch the match, to be honest,” he said, per ESPN.
“It’s going to be tricky because we are flying back home, so maybe on Sunday the second half will be probably the moment that I will watch the game, and the first half [I will] just miss it.”
But that’s as much commentary on his hopeless Aston Martin car as it is the importance of the final.
The team hopes this will be its worst weekend of the season, not because it loves the pain but because next week’s Hungarian Grand Prix will see Aston Martin introduce a B-spec car that it’s been working on all season.
Rumours suggest the new car and Honda’s new engine — which will arrive one race later, after the midseason break — could be worth 2.5 seconds in total.
That wouldn’t do much for the team in Belgium, however.
Lance Stroll and Alonso were 21st and 22nd respectively, positions they’ve become long accustomed to this year.
Remarkably, the gap between Stroll and the next-quickest driver — Sergio Pérez, for the rookie Cadillac team — was 1.535 seconds just on its own.
Stroll was 5.187 seconds slower than Antonelli.
Of course the long circuit exacerbates the margins, but still — ouch.
Relative to Mercedes, Stroll was 30 kilometres per hour slower down on the front straight and a massive 40 kilometres per hour down into Pouhon.
If the same result were repeated in qualifying, surprisingly it wouldn’t be the team’s worst result in terms of pure pace — it would be better than its last three results when accounting for the lap length.
But when the team has been fighting for nothing and has locked out the back row of the grid five times already this season, that doesn’t mean much.
Hungary can’t come soon enough.