{"id":807590,"date":"2026-07-18T05:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807590\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:21:12","slug":"f1-belgian-grand-prix-2026-practice-results-highlights-oscar-piastri-mechanical-problems-pierre-gasly-crash-video-kimi-antonelli-fastest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807590\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Belgian Grand Prix 2026: Practice results, highlights, Oscar Piastri mechanical problems, Pierre Gasly crash video; Kimi Antonelli fastest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oscar Piastri<\/a>\u2019s opening day of practice for the Belgian Grand Prix<\/a> was curtailed by a mechanical problem that forced his McLaren<\/a> team to replace his gearbox.<\/p>\n

Piastri sat out the final minutes of opening practice as the team worked to diagnose the problem, which turned out to be a hydraulic leak in his gearbox. The mechanics then went to work fitting the spare.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri missed a stack of track time after his McLaren was beset by mechanical gremlins.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The massive amount of work required to replace the gearbox meant he also watched the first 20 minutes of the second practice session from the garage.<\/p>\n

The Aussie\u2019s practice session was further hampered by a lengthy red flag after Pierre Gasly<\/a> crashed his Alpine<\/a> with just under 15 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

Piastri still managed to end the day sixth-fastest, albeit nearly a second behind the Mercedes<\/a> of championship leader Kimi Antonelli<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, it has been a reasonable day \u2026 thank you to them for working through to get (the gearbox) sorted,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made good progress in practice two, and our pace is looking reasonable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heading in the right direction, and we are in a good place to build on that in practice three tomorrow and into qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammate Lando Norris<\/a> was second-fastest, just under two tenths slower. Norris has a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday\u2019s race hanging over his head<\/a> after the team were forced to install a fourth new battery of the season for this weekend\u2019s race. Teams are only allowed to use three before incurring penalties.<\/p>\n

The McLaren team bought a new rear wing to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, which is nestled in the Ardennes Forest. Technical director Neil Houldey said the wing performed \u201cas we hoped\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier, four-time world champion Max Verstappen<\/a> set the pace in the opening session. Red Bull<\/a> has reverted back to a previous rear wing for this weekend, after their version of Ferrari<\/a>\u2018s \u2018Macarena\u2019 wing that rotated 180 degrees caused him to crash twice in the previous two race weekends<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mechanics at Alpine will no doubt have had a busy night after Gasly ripped the right-rear wheel off his car in a heavy crash in second practice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Alpine of Pierre Gasly crashed heavily during second practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.\u00a0F1<\/p>\n

Gasly\u2019s car wobbled on a kerb on corner-exit, and the Frenchman counter-steered to catch the wobble. But the car then gripped up and spat him into the wall on driver\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Cameras caught Gasly talking to his team back in the pits only minutes later.<\/p>\n

After a slow start to the day, Antonelli and Mercedes found their rhythm and shot to the top of the time sheets.<\/p>\n

The day after the British Grand Prix<\/a>, the 19-year-old was spotted in the Royal Box at Wimbledon<\/a> with tennis<\/a> legend Roger Federer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli and Roger Federer in the Royal Box at Wimbledon the day after the British Grand Prix.\u00a0AP Photo\/Kirsty Wigglesworth<\/p>\n

Antonelli is in the midst of a points slump, having failed to score in two of the last three grands prix. <\/p>\n

He suffered an engine failure in Barcelona, but bounced back to finish third in Austria<\/a>. Then at Silverstone, his car suffered a bizarre bodywork failure that caused him to repeatedly run off the track, which then earned him a post-race time penalty. He was classified 15th in the final results.<\/p>\n

The Italian said Federer offered him advice about pressure and how to keep a level head.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just told me to really focus one race at a time, just focus on what you can control, and also to control the emotions, especially the ones that can make you do mistakes,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were the main pieces of advice. Other than that, it was an incredible experience to witness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drivers have one more hour-long practice session on Saturday evening (AEST) before qualifying begins at midnight.<\/p>\n

The race gets underway at 11pm on Sunday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri\u2019s opening day of practice for the Belgian Grand Prix was curtailed by a mechanical problem that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-807590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}