Cloudy skies met the drivers and teams for the start of second practice for the 2024 Belgian GP, as most drivers headed out on the medium tyres for their opening runs, with penalty-bound Max Verstappen continuing his strong form from FP1 to lead the opening runs, a tenth of a second clear of Lando Norris despite the McLaren running the softest compound tyre, against mediums on the Red Bull, that further improved to set a 1:43.339 a few minutes later.
Sergio Perez noted Norris’s McLaren suffered from “grounding” effect through Eau Rouge, as the MCL38 hit its floor and sparked through the fast corner.
With the threat of light rain impacting the latter parts of the session, drivers started to go out on the soft tyre for their qualifying simulation earlier, with Carlos Sainz first over the line, setting a 1:43.088, but that was quickly smashed by Hungarian GP winner Oscar Piastri, who set a 1:42.475 to go over six tenths quicker than the Ferrari.
The Australian went over the kerbs at the exit of Les Combes, and asked over the radio for McLaren to check his floor after it went “skateboarding” for a bit.
Verstappen responded soon after, but missed out on the fastest time by 0.002s from the Australian.
VCARB showed some good speed in the first sector that is heavily dependent on straight line, but Ricciardo and Tsunoda couldn’t do better than 9th and 14th with their flying laps, with the latter set to start at the back of the grid after taking a 60-place grid penalty for changing power unit components
Kevin Magnussen, who was announced last week to leave Haas at the end of the season, showed impressive speed, putting his Haas shortly in P5, a second off Piastri’s best time and ahead of Sergio Perez, before the pair got knocked down a place by Charles Leclerc, who went third fastest in his Ferrari, three tenths back from the leading duo and a further three tenths clear of his team-mate in P4.
Lando Norris soon dethroned his team-mate from the top, with an impressive lap of a 1:42.260 getting him over two tenths clear of Piastri and Verstappen.
On the Wolverine/Deadpool-liveried Alpine, Esteban Ocon – who announced yesterday that he’ll be joining Haas for 2025 – put his A524 in an incredible P7, just 1.1s behind the fastest time.
Mercedes was one key absence from the very top of the times. George Russell finished down in sixth, over a second back from Norris, with Lewis Hamilton a further four places back in P10, nearly a quarter of a second slower, with Mercedes not performing as expected in the cooler conditions Friday presented.
Outside the top 10, Lance Stroll led Aston Martin’s charge in P11, just six hundredths clear of Alonso in P12.
Daniel Ricciardo reported his car was “strange” and “wobbly”, and he was asked by his race engineer to slowly bring his VCARB back to the pits, as they could see there was indeed a problem.
It was a relatively clean session, with no yellow or red flags affecting the running, and the predicted rain not arriving.
