Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli was fastest for Mercedes in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, with Pierre Gasly bringing a halt to the second session with a crash that left debris strewn across the track.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old Italian lapped the Spa-Francorchamps circuit with a best time of one minute 45.944 seconds in practice two, 0.190 quicker than McLaren’s reigning world champion Lando Norris.<\/p>\n
Norris was on pole position at Spa last year but this time will have a 10-place grid penalty added to wherever he qualifies.<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third on the later timesheets, 0.472 off Antonelli’s time, after leading the way in first practice with a time of 1:47.070.<\/p>\n
Gasly crashed his Alpine at Stavelot with 14 minutes remaining, smashing his car’s rear wing and suspension and bringing out the red flags.<\/p>\n
“Just absolutely lost it out of nowhere,” the Frenchman said over the team radio. “I must have lost the rear.”<\/p>\n
By the time the track was clear again, there was not enough time for more quick laps with drivers focusing on practice starts.<\/p>\n
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton — a winner already this season and chasing a record-equalling sixth Belgian victory — was second fastest in the opening session, 0.145 slower than Verstappen, and fourth later on.<\/p>\n
Belgian-born four-time champion Verstappen has won three times at Spa-Francorchamps, most recently in 2023.<\/p>\n
The Dutch driver has crashed at speed in the last two races, accidents that have led Red Bull to revert to a more conventional rear wing.<\/p>\n
Teammate Isack Hadjar, who will start at the back on Sunday due to engine penalties, was fourth and fifth in the two sessions.<\/p>\n
McLaren’s 2025 winner Oscar Piastri was fifth early on and then sixth.<\/p>\n
Antonelli had fumed at Williams’ Carlos Sainz in the first session, calling the Spaniard an idiot for blocking him.<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ George Russell was eighth in both sessions, ahead of Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad.<\/p>\n
New Zealand’s Liam Lawson was 11th fastest in practice one and 10th fastest in practice two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli was fastest for Mercedes in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, with Pierre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-531334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}