Verstappen lays a marker with strong time to top FP1 in Belgium

Russell led the two Mercedes drivers in P4 and P5 with the next places divided between Ferrari, Norris and Perez. The session was largely incident-free. Daniel Ricciardo had a small moment at the start. Esteban Ocon spent most of the session in the garage with a suspected leak.

How the first free practice session happened in Belgium

With a threat of rain in the air for the second free practice session later on Friday afternoon, the track became busy early on. Daniel Ricciardo was the first to have an issue as he spun around. He got on the kerb at turn one and spun. He managed to avoid the wall and carry on. Verstappen, Hamilton and the two McLaren cars found themselves in the top four after the first 10 minutes.

Verstappen remained at the top after 20 minutes and was half a second faster despite having a tyre disadvantage. This is likely due to Red Bull's run plan during FP1 rather than any performance advantage. McLaren and Ferrari all sat inside the top seven, while Sergio Perez was only quick enough for P10 at this stage.

Russell was the first driver to put the soft tyres on at the halfway point. He went purple straight away in the first sector and managed to beat Verstappen's fastest by around three-tenths. Verstappen set his time almost straight after. Despite not setting a personal best in sector three, the Dutchman was more than eight-tenths faster than Russell and seven-tenths faster than Piastri.

Perez put on the soft tyres just after Verstappen. The Mexican was nowhere near as quick as Verstappen; in fact, he was nearly one full second behind his teammate during the weekend. He really needs to prove himself. Still, it was good enough to get him ahead of Norris and into P5 at the time of setting the lap. Alex Albon was a surprise name at the top of the timesheets. His low-drag Williams car was quick enough to go to P3 on the softs.