Max Verstappen beats times in opening practice and faces grid penalty

Max Verstappen, who faces a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race, topped Red Bull’s times ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in Friday’s opening free practice at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. week. Five days after his profanity-laced outbursts on team radio at the Hungaroring, the series leader and three-times world champion spoke out on track as he overtook Piastri, who took his first Formula 1 victory in Hungary, by 0.531 seconds. Verstappen recorded a best lap of one minute and 43.372 seconds and remained unchallenged at the front of the pack throughout the session as he began his bid to end a three-race winless run by claiming his fourth successive Belgian triumph.

Alex Albon, from Williams, was third fastest, ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, from Ferrari, Sergio Perez, from Red Bull, and Lando Norris, in the second McLaren.

Carlos Sainz was ninth for Ferrari and Lance Stroll was 10th for Aston Martin.

On a hot, if cloudy, summer day after heavy rain in the Ardennes, Russell was the first man out, but it was Verstappen who set the first time on hard tires at 1:44.706, Piastri soon reaching second place, seven tenths behind the Dutchman.

Norris, both the Ferrari and Hamilton drivers, as well as the Australian, were initially on soft tires, while Esteban Ocon, having just announced his move to Haas next year, was stuck in the Alpine garage while the team worked on an alleged water leak.

As Verstappen began to reduce his time, his 10-place grid penalty for using a new engine was confirmed, along with one for RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, who will start from the back of the grid after taking more power unit components.

Midway through the session, Perez joined Verstappen on the track and switched to soft gear, taking fifth place, but complained that his car was unresponsive. “I’m really struggling to know what the car is doing in the entries,” he reported.

At this stage, Verstappen led the times ahead of Piastri and Alex Albon, whose Williams showed real potential, and the two Mercedes of Russell and Hamilton, with Leclerc in sixth ahead of Perez.

With nine minutes remaining and most drivers using soft tires after doing qualifying simulation laps, Hamilton ran wide at Les Combes before stopping. “I have to go in,” he said. “The jump is really bad.”

Russell had complained minutes before that he had “no rear”, but the riders’ complaints could not hide the fact that they had shown an inconsistent pace in the opening session, in conditions more suited to their group.

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