McLaren quickest but must strike the right balance on soggy Saturday · RaceFans

With one of the highest average lap speeds of any circuit on the calendar and one of the longest full-throttle stretched on the entire calendar from La Source to Les Combes, it’s easy to think of Spa-Francorchamps as a low-downforce circuit. A power circuit. But it is not quite that.

It’s a Jekyll and Hyde track. As well as the flat-out sequences in the first and final sectors, the middle sector, from Les Combes to Curva Paul Frere, is all mid- and high-speed corners which reward downforce and aerodynamic efficiency handsomely.

So more than most circuits, Spa is about either striking a compromise, or taking a risk between picking lower downforce for the straights or higher downforce for the middle sector.

So it was little surprise to see many teams splitting their downforce approaches between both of their cars. Red Bull were one among many. Max Verstappen appearing to be running a lower downforce setting than his team mate, evidenced by how Perez was consistently slower than his team mate at the end of the Kemmel Straight and after Blanchimont, while Perez would carry more speed through Pouhon and Piff Paff among others.

After two hours of dry running to start the weekend, McLaren appeared to have started this weekend where they had left the last by being the quickest cars on Friday. Lando Norris was two tenths of a second quicker than team mate Oscar Piastri over their respective fastest laps on fresh soft tyres mid way through the second practice session, but Verstappen’s effort was virtually identical to Piastri’s.

The apparent pace of the McLaren, it would have been thought, would have left their drivers very optimistic about their prospects for the rest of the weekend. Especially as wherever Verstappen qualifies on Saturday, he will start ten places lower on the grid thanks to the penalty that was confirmed today for using his fifth internal combustion engine.

Instead, however, the McLaren mood was more subdued. Norris admitted he had not felt comfortable with his car across the two sessions, while Piastri remained very wary of the potential threat from Verstappen, even with his grid penalty.

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“It’s better than if he was starting at the front,” Piastri said after the second session. “I don’t think you can count him out. It’s a track that they’ve been very quick at the last couple of years. They look quick this weekend again. So I’m expecting him to make progress through the field, but having a bit of a head start, hopefully, will definitely help a bit.”

Piastri would have been encouraged by his long run pace on the mediums being more consistent than Verstappen’s was on the same compound. But further good news for McLaren and Red Bull were how Mercedes – the winners at both of the last two low-downforce circuits – did not seem to have the same level of performance as them based on their long runs.

“We’ve got some work to do tonight,” George Russell accepted after he and team mate Lewis Hamilton were only sixth and tenth, respectively, at the end of Friday.

“I think McLaren are definitely a step ahead of us at the moment – and Red Bull. So we just need to keep on assessing and go from there. I think the McLarens were at max power, which gives you a couple of tenths around this track. We’ve often had good Fridays and then the others have caught up with us on Saturdays, so hopefully that will be us this weekend.”

As well as the relative performance of the front running teams, Friday also revealed that the recently repaved sections of the Spa circuit may end up having a significant impact on how Sunday’s race develops. Compared to last year, roughly half of the track’s seven kilometres of asphalt has been replaced – including almost the entire first sector and from the exit of Raidillon all the way to the entry of Bruxelles.

“The new surface is nice, definitely,” was s Yuki Tsunoda’s assessment. “It feels smoother, a little bit more grip I would say.

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“It’s kind of funny because there’s a mix up between old tarmac and new tarmac. The old tarmac in like turns 12 and 13 (Piff Paff), it feels like much, much worse grip. It’s still smooth, so it’s still okay, but it’s kind of familiar there, and other corners were more of nice grip. So it’s been a mixed feeling throughout the lap, but it’s still a nice modification.”

Not only does the resurfacing offer different grip levels than the untouched sections in the middle sector, the new asphalt could be contributing to much higher levels of tyre wear. Several drivers complained of their tyres giving up earlier than expected during longer runs in both sessions, with Perez describing the wear levels as “extreme”. Pirelli believe the renewed surface could be leading to increased graining than last year, especially on the soft and medium compounds, which is contributing to higher wear than at previous races here.

But as well as tyre strategy and wing levels, there is another headache that teams will have to contend with on Saturday – rain. Current forecasts put around a two-thirds chance of rain leading up to qualifying with more expected over the qualifying hour itself. Although Verstappen is doomed to start outside of the top ten – barring further penalties for other drivers – a wet session will be one filled with pit falls that his rivals, especially the McLaren pair, must avoid falling into.

Verstappen has won each of the last two Belgian Grands Prix outside of the top five starting positions and this weekend will be the most difficult of all for him to win. But while Verstappen’s rivals cannot win the race on Saturday, they have to be sure they will not lose it there either.

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Combined practice times

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