Max Verstappen headed a Red Bull one-two at the top of the timesheets at the end of the opening day of practice for the Belgian Grand Prix as world champions Mercedes chose to focus their attention on race preparation
Max Verstappen
SPA (BELGIUM): Max Verstappen headed a Red Bull one-two at the top of the timesheets at the end of the opening day of practice for the Belgian Grand Prix as world champions Mercedes chose to focus their attention on race preparation.
Red Bull racing’s Max Verstappen drives his car during the second practice session in Spa yesterday. Pic/AFP
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The Dutchman, for whom the race is the closest he has to a home event, lapped the 7-kilometer long Spa-Francorchamps circuit in one minute 48.085 seconds, 0.256 seconds quicker than Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.
That time was the quickest of the day, surpassing Nico Rosberg’s session-topping pace from the morning session which he set while trialling the ‘halo’ cockpit protection device on his Mercedes.
He was the quickest Mercedes again in the afternoon but was only sixth fastest, over a second off Verstappen’s pace.
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton, second in the afternoon was 13th.
The Briton heads into the weekend 19 points ahead of Rosberg in the overall standings and aiming to become only the third driver ever to score 50 career wins.
But he is set to start near the back of the grid due to hefty engine-related penalties, with Mercedes changing his engine twice before the start of each of Friday's two sessions.
As a result, like Rosberg, the reigning triple champion spent his afternoon working on long-run race simulations rather than short-duration qualifying blasts.
Nico Hulkenberg capped a strong day of practice for Force India by going third quickest ahead of Sebastian Vettel, whose Ferrari team struggled in the uncharacteristically hot weather.
Sergio Perez in the second Force India was fifth.
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