Verstappen wins the opening practice at Spa

At the beginning, the majority of the cars had medium tires on. With 10 minutes into the session most drivers had their first fast times set and it was Red Bull who topped the standings. Specifically Isack Hadjar who had the soft tires on.

By this time George Russell complained on the radio that he doesn’t have much grip as he was running on the nineth. Meanwhile Lando Norris was the only one who still didn’t have any time set.

With 15 minutes into the session Carlos Sainz’s lap time got deleted due to the track limits violation in Turn 11. A couple of minutes later, Kimi Antonelli and Arvid Lindblad had a moment on the track but there was no contact.

After 22 minutes half of the grid returned into the boxes meanwhile the Red Bull and Ferrari were still on the top of the standings. By this time, Lando Norris, running on the last place, put a fresh set of soft tires and lined up eleventh. In the middle of the session Kimi Antonelli topped the standings on the soft tires ahead of Isack Hadjar, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

 George Russell also improved his time on the softs and lined up fourth ahead of both Ferraris. As Red Bull also pitted for the softs the drivers topped the standings again ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari.

With 20 minutes remaining Verstappen was still on the top with time of 1:47:070 seconds. Hamilton, Leclerc, Hadjar and Antonelli were behind, everyone on the softs. With 15 minutes until the end many cars pitted. After five minutes the track was full of cars again and only Haas’s cars were on the medium tires.

As the drivers competed their last fast attempts no one was able to beat Verstappen’s time, securing him the first place with both Ferraris behind. As the session came to an end, Oscar Piastri went off track and his engineer told him on the radio that he has a hydraulic issue so he should bring the car back slowly into the garage.