F1 LIVE | The first and final free practice session for the Belgian GP

The first and only free practice session for the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps is about to start. At 12:30 BST, the lights will turn green, and the Formula 1 drivers will have just one hour to determine their set-up for the rest of the weekend. This is because the Belgian Grand Prix uses F1's sprint format weekend.

F1 LIVE | FP1: Belgian Grand Prix

Qualifying is scheduled for Friday afternoon, which will determine the starting grid for Sunday's Grand Prix. After qualifying, the cars go into parc fermé, and therefore almost nothing can be changed in the set-up. Drivers only have 60 minutes, so it will undoubtedly be busy on the asphalt. The weather forecast shows a lot of rain falling so this could make things interesting.

Spa-Francorchamps

Chances are that asphalt will be wet. Rain is predicted for the entire Friday on and around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. However, it will not be a completely lost practice, as we saw in Hungary last week. Qualifying will therefore most likely also be held on intermediate or wet tyres on Friday and the same applies to the Sprint Shootout and sprint race on Saturday. The weather forecast for Sunday is slightly better, but the chance of showers remains.

Max Verstappen is expected to be very dominant again this weekend with his RB19, but maybe teammate Sergio Perez or the competition will pull something off. The course of the first free practice will give the first indications of where teams are in the pecking order.