The Spa times that show how much Ferrari has lost in a year

The 2019 Belgian Grand Prix was the scene of Ferrari's first win of that year in Formula 1, and it then surged to two more wins in Italy - courtesy of Charles Leclerc - and Sebastian Vettel's win at Singapore, while a likely fourth triumph was lost in Russia.

It has long been known that the team's controversial power unit "settlement" with the FIA has been costing Ferrari pace, but the first two practice sessions for the 2020 Belgian GP really reinforced just how far Ferrari has fallen in the power stakes.

F1 has finally arrived at a track with really long acceleration zones and, after three hours of practice, the times do not make for good reading for the Scuderia.

On one-lap pace, Leclerc finished down in P15 in FP2 at Spa today. In the same session a year ago, he was P1. Back in 2020 and he finished with a best time that was 1.317 seconds slower than his 2019 benchmark. In the other SF1000 on Friday, Sebastian Vettel was beaten by George Russell's Williams, as he came away with the 17th fastest FP2 time.

Overall one-lap pace

1 Red Bull (Verstappen) - 1m43.744s
2 Renault (Ricciardo) - 1m43.792s
3 Mercedes (Hamilton) - 1m43.840s
4 Racing Point (Perez) - 1m44.137s
5 McLaren (Norris) - 1m44.168s
6 AlphaTauri (Gasly) - 1m44.600s
7 Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi) - 1m44.861s
8 Ferrari (Leclerc) - 1m45.440s
9 Williams (Russell) - 1m45.463s
10 Haas (Grosjean) - 1m45.834s

But Ferrari's pace in long run averages (below) looks dreadful too. On the soft tyre comparison, Ferrari ended up only ahead of Haas, which had a shocker of a Friday thanks to reliability dramas on its customer Ferrari power unit. The works team was also apparently last (remember that the usual caveats regarding fuel loads and engine modes apply when looking at these numbers) on the medium, which is a much better race tyre.

It seems Ferrari was struggling to get the tyres working today, and both drivers did not like the balance they found on their cars, but Leclerc's comments after FP2 suggest that Ferrari is itself taken somewhat aback at how painful today was compared to the joy of a year ago.

"It's probably a surprise to be so far back, especially in FP2," he said. "We've tried quite a lot of things. At the beginning, I tried something quite aggressive in downforce levels, but it didn't really work out. We came back on that.

"We are just lacking pace at the moment. We need to work hard to catch back, but I don't expect miracles for this weekend. It's doesn't feel good, and it's sad to see Ferrari so far down. As always, our work as drivers is to give our best, and that's exactly what I'm trying and what Seb is trying to do in the car."

On the soft tyre comparison, Ferrari ended up only ahead of Haas, which had a shocker of a Friday thanks to reliability dramas on its customer Ferrari power unit

The length of the Spa lap is amplifying things when it comes to the impact of engine modes, fuel loads (and we know Ferrari struggles particularly with the former), and the varying drag levels on all the cars, which is a another factor to consider this weekend, as we shall see later on.

But, with Leclerc 14 places down the standings 2019 FP2 vs 2020 FP2, that's still a very long way off where Ferrari was 12 months ago.

At the front of the pack, Red Bull and Max Verstappen stole a march on Mercedes in FP2. Even more surprising was Daniel Ricciardo slotting his Renault into second, with the team satisfied it is back to a representative state with the RS20 after losing out compared to its form at Silverstone last time out in Spain by not quite hitting the set-up sweetspot (and being less competitive in the overall aerodynamic stakes at Barcelona).

As the heavens opened at Spa following the F1 running (which included a brief lightning storm), it felt a bit like the British GP, where Mercedes wasn't happy with its balance after the opening practice sessions and trailed Racing Point and Red Bull. But it came good as ever on the Saturday, which is more than likely what will happen when the engine modes are turned up at Spa tomorrow.

On overall pace, Mercedes was pretty surprised how close the midfield was today, with Lewis Hamilton unsure "whether they've taken a step forwards or we've taken a step backwards".

Hamilton lost roughly 0.4s to Verstappen at the final corners on his best lap, having arrived at the Bus Stop chicane about 0.3s ahead. The world champion did make a small mistake there, but Mercedes still didn't expect to lose that amount to the Red Bull. Again, a combination of the varying engine modes, drag levels and fuel load is suspected as the reason why Mercedes was off today. Verstappen said: "Personally I think they're still struggling a bit with their balance."

There are key reasons why the combination mentioned above is so important at Spa. First, rain is expected to impact the rest of the weekend, so a higher downforce set-up will pay dividends in the race in such conditions. And Mercedes set its best time in FP2 with a higher downforce rear wing after experimenting with a low-downforce one in FP1. On the higher downforce wing it seems to have trimmed off the gurney flap to cut out some of the drag, but its specification for FP2 roughly matches what it used at Silverstone.

Returning to that magic combination and how it can skew the picture, the long lap at Spa means slight fuel differences are worth a lot of time, with 10kg costing about 0.3s-0.4s. So, if Mercedes had more fuel on board in FP2 that exaggerates the real gap to its rivals. But there's no doubt it feels like a bit of an outlier and therefore on the back-foot at this stage.

"We looked a bit slower than we normally do on a Friday even when the car seems to be working well," said Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin. "We've got a few areas that we are already looking into and hopefully we can make some progress for tomorrow."

Renault topped the times in sector one and sector three in FP2, which suggests it may have been running a lower downforce package at this stage. The Mercedes engines were also likely turned down as that's what it historically does in practice. Plus, Mercedes knows it has power unit strength in hand, so can afford to give away some time in those sectors to be super-quick in sector two, which Hamilton indeed topped in FP2.

On the long runs, Red Bull again appeared to gain time on Mercedes at the tight and twisty Turn 18/19 Bus Stop, which Mercedes can't quite explain at this stage.

Soft tyre average pace

1 Mercedes 1m48.855s - 6 laps
2 Renault 1m49.058s - 5 laps
3 Red Bull 1m49.346s - 7 laps
4 McLaren 1m49.505s - 4 laps
5 Racing Point 1m49.621s - 5 laps
6 AlphaTauri 1m50.844s - 6 laps
7 Alfa Romeo 1m51.254s - 7 laps
8 Ferrari 1m51.279s - 6 laps
9 Haas 1m51.492s - 6 laps
10 Williams 1m51.603s - 8 laps

In terms of the long-run averages, with the laps that these are taken from somewhat disrupted by the late FP2 virtual safety car and red flag interruptions, Mercedes heads the way on the soft tyre. But that isn't thought to be a good race tyre, as it starts to degrade significantly after three laps. Renault looked strong on the softs as well, as it backed up its one-lap pace nicely.

On the medium rubber, Racing Point leads the way, which reinforces Mercedes' feeling that the midfield was closer today, and Mercedes and Red Bull were almost matched on that tyre. The medium is thought to be a much better race tyre, but Pirelli says it saw a bigger gap than expected and that this may discourage people trying to qualify on the mediums in Q2. But if it rains on Saturday that's out of the window anyway, as all the drivers would be free to start on the harder compounds.

Medium tyre average pace

1 Racing Point 1m48.950s - 6 laps
2 Mercedes 1m48.972s - 4 laps
3 Red Bull 1m49.053s - 6 laps
4 McLaren 1m49.755s - 4 laps
5 Renault 1m49.801s - 6 laps
6 Haas 1m50.389s - 5 laps
7 Williams 1m50.629s - 5 laps
8 Alfa Romeo 1m50.739s - 6 laps
9 Ferrari 1m50.849s - 4 laps

*AlphaTauri did not do a long run on the mediums in FP2

Mercedes returns to the top of the times on the hards, which are also thought to be a good race tyre - but only five teams tried long runs on this rubber in FP2.

Judging by everything we've seen today and so far this season, expect Mercedes to return to the front of a dry qualifying, but Red Bull and Racing Point look like they may be able to challenge on the favoured race tyres at this stage. If it rains in qualifying, it's still hard to look past Mercedes starting ahead given Hamilton's prowess in those conditions at the Styrian GP.

So, do and don't get excited at this stage. One, Mercedes always makes progress from the snapshots these Friday times provide. But, two, the team thinks there is a big chance Sunday could be wet, which would make for an unpredictable race.

Returning to Ferrari, could the expected rain be its saviour and revive its form? No, laments Leclerc: "Normally in the rain, the balance only gets worse, and the issues you have in the dry are worse in the rain.

"I think it's going to be difficult if we don't find any solution to fix the balance problems we have today."