Max Verstappen dominated the first free practice session in Spa putting a big gap between him and the competition.
The last first free practice session before the summer break started with teams and drivers trying to set the car up for the long Spa circuit.
Daniel Ricciardo spun in turn 1 but didn’t damage the car. The drivers weren’t happy since there wasn’t much grip around the track.
Verstappen, after a not-so-positive performance in Hungary, set the pace with the hards followed by the two Mercedes of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. The McLarens were right behind.
Even on soft tires, when teams started to practice for the qualifying laps, Verstappen was the quickest, and the gap wasn’t close. The Dutchman was 0.7s faster than Piastri in P2.
Sergio Perez couldn’t get close to his teammate, as he was almost 1 second slower than him. Russell was third, with Hamilton fourth.
Charles Leclerc was the quickest Ferrari on track being P5, 0.934s behind Verstappen. The latter was confirmed to start 10 position further back on the grid on Sunday as Red Bull decided to change his engine.
Piastri got closer to Verstappen, as he was 0.5s behind him. Alexander Albon did a great lap and put his Williams in P3.
Meanwhile, Lando Norris was only in P8, with Carlos Sainz in P9, and Lance Stroll in P10.
In the last part of the session, the drivers started to work on the race pace simulation. Both Verstappen and Norris were averaging similar times.
Sainz was doing a good job on the soft tires, as his pace was better than Leclerc’s with the mediums.
If the gap in the qualifying run was big between Verstappen and the others, the gap in the race pace simulations was very tight. Sunday could gift the fans another entertaining race.