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Mercedes and Red Bull lead way on day one as Ferrari suffer nightmare

by Zane Shackleton
August 29, 2020
in Formula 1, International, News
0

Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen have ended the opening day of the Belgian Grand Prix fastest just hours before heavy rain lashed over the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

In a weekend where Mercedes were expected to dominate proceedings with their unmatchable top-end performance, Verstappen was a surprise front runner as Red Bull look to take the challenge to the defending world champions.

However, despite ending the final session fastest ahead of a jubilant Daniel Ricciardo, Verstappen conceded his ultimate pace will likely be unable to topple the Mercedes duo come qualifying trim given their rival’s ability to increase engine power over one lap.

“The car seems to be handling well,” Verstappen said. “Overall, I’m pretty happy. Personally, I think Mercedes are still struggling a bit with the balance and I expect them to be stronger tomorrow. I don’t think I will be fighting them for pole because we can’t really follow when they turn it up in qualifying.”

Mercedes pairing Bottas and Lewis Hamilton shared time at the top of the standings in FP1, with the Finn edging home his teammate by 0.069s as he celebrates his 31st birthday.

While Spa is not overly known for its punishment on rubber, teams were given a soft allocation of tyre compounds for the weekend and several drivers were spied running indecently slow across the 7km circuit on their outlap to keep their tyres in check for a qualifying sim.

However, there also emerged a sizable time difference between the soft and medium tyre meaning it could prove difficult for teams to squeeze into Q3 on a more durable compound setting up a likely two-stop race.

Racing Point should be in podium contention this weekend with their race pace after ending both practice sessions only two-tenths down on the average speed of the Red Bulls, while Renault had a strong session highlighted by a sublime effort from Ricciardo in the second session to finish second.

However, joys were quickly abated as the Australian parked up his R.S.20 along the Kemmel Straight with a hydraulic issue only twenty minutes from the end of FP2 which the team were unable to rectify in time to resume running.

A loose advertising panel which found a new home on the circuit just after Ricciardo’s incident yielded the only stoppage of the day.

Meanwhile, Ferrari’s nightmare of a season continues as the team slumped to 15th and 17th in the second session after qualifying sims played themselves out. The works Scuderia outfit were 1.3s behind Mercedes in one-lap pace and over 1.4s slower in race trim.

Ferrari topped every practice session at Spa last year and locked out the front row in qualifying before Charles Leclerc triumphed in the race. Both Leclerc and teammate Vettel finished less than one-tenth above the ailing Williams duo in a horror day for the Italian squad.

A very difficult day,” said a puzzled Leclerc. “I think it’s probably a surprise to be so far back, especially in FP2. We tried quite a lot of things in FP2.

“At the beginning I tried something quite aggressive in downforce levels but it didn’t really work out so we came back on that, and we are just lacking pace at the moment so we need to work hard to catch back.

“But I don’t expect miracles for this weekend.”

FP1 results:

PosDriverGap
1Valtteri Bottas1m44.493s
2Lewis Hamilton0.069s
3Max Verstappen0.081s
4Sergio Perez0.136s
5Lance Stroll0.375s
6Alexander Albon0.556s
7Esteban Ocon0.606s
8Carlos Sainz Jr.0.729s
9Daniel Ricciardo0.732s
10Lando Norris0.781s
11Daniil Kvyat0.954s
12Pierre Gasly1.010s
13Kimi Raikkonen1.211s
14Charles Leclerc1.266s
15Sebastian Vettel1.686s
16Nicholas Latifi1.995s
17George Russell2.077s
18Kevin Magnussen–
19Romain Grosjean–
20Antonio Giovinazzi–

FP2 Results:

PosDriverGap
1Max Verstappen1m43.744s
2Daniel Ricciardo0.048s
3Lewis Hamilton0.096s
4Alexander Albon0.390s
5Sergio Perez0.393s
6Valtteri Bottas0.418s
7Lando Norris0.424s
8Esteban Ocon0.464s
9Carlos Sainz Jr.0.730s
10Pierre Gasly0.856s
11Lance Stroll0.934s
12Daniil Kvyat1.082s
13Antonio Giovinazzi1.117s
14Kimi Raikkonen1.152s
15Charles Leclerc1.696s
16George Russell1.719s
17Sebastian Vettel1.939s
18Nicholas Latifi2.030s
19Romain Grosjean2.090s
20Kevin Magnussen2.498s

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