BELGIAN GP – Carlos Sainz fastest in wet practice six tenths ahead of the McLarens
Carlos Sainz was fastest in practice ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver set a 02:03.207 in wet conditions at Spa. That put Sainz nearly six-tenths ahead of the McLaren’s of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris with the top three all setting their fastest times on the intermediates.
The only practice session of the weekend saw very limited running going into qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix. However, if qualifying for the Grand Prix can’t be run later this afternoon the grid will be set by championship order this being a sprint weekend there is little opportunity to fit them in.
McLaren’s midseason resurgence continued as Piastri was eight-tenths quicker than Norris, but Max Verstappen didn’t set a time. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was fourth he was nearly a tenth faster than Sergio Perez. Alex Albon set his fastest time early on before the rain started to intensify, at the time going two seconds faster than Lewis Hamilton.
Although he looked to improve on his next attempt the Williams driver failed to slow down through the Bus Stop, bailing out of the final chicane taking to the run off. That left Albon a quarter of a second faster than Yuki Tsunoda, the Alpha Tauri driver hanging onto his car to avoid a crash midway through Eau Rouge and then ran wide at Raidillion.
Despite the conditions the only red flag was caused by Logan Sargeant, when his Williams stopped at the end of the Kemmel Straight, stating that he “couldn’t turn” as he applied right-hand lock on the steering wheel with no discernible effect, and came to rest at Les Combes as the car came to rest.
Kevin Magnussen was eighth the Haas seven tenths faster than Daniel Ricciardo, the Alpha Tauri driver a hundredth faster than Nico Hulkenberg, who rounded out the top ten. Fernando Alonso was eleventh going nearly two tenths faster than the Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton was just over a tenth and a half ahead of teammate George Russell.
The two Alfa Romeo’s rounded out the drivers who set a time, Valtteri Bottas nearly two seconds faster than teammate Guanyu Zhou.