What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 F1 Belgian GP

The waters had been choppy at Red Bull of late. Despite the potency of its Austria updates, Silverstone presented something of a disappointment to the Milton Keynes outfit, as Max Verstappen had been unable to assert his pace over the Mercedes and Ferrari runners before coming to an ignominious end in the gravel at Stowe. 

His immeasurable disappointment in the wake of his race-ending off, one that led to Red Bull electing to remove its own variant of the "Macarena" wing to avoid any further repeats of its airflow-reattachment issues, stirred up another batch of rumours about the Dutchman's future. Will he stick it out at Red Bull? It's looking more likely, given the paucity of other opportunities on the grid.

Regardless, Red Bull showed promise in the opening practice session of this year's Belgian Grand Prix. In particular, its pace over the second half of the lap appeared to demonstrate that the car emerged from the box with strong medium-speed performance, and had been able to uncover a vein of extra speed while gasping for energy through Blanchimont over the other cars. It had been looking good, although perhaps less so from Isack Hadjar's perspective; the Frenchman has strayed outside of his powertrain allocation for the first time this season, and thus cops a 15-place grid penalty with a new internal combustion engine, turbo, and exhaust.

With time to find, Mercedes dialled itself in for FP2 - allowing Kimi Antonelli to reel off a time on medium tyres that was faster than Verstappen's FP1 benchmark. The Italian later settled on a 1m45.944s on his soft-tyre effort, becoming the only driver so far this weekend to drop below the 1m46s. Verstappen, for his part, was almost half a second off as Lando Norris split the two. It was almost against the run of play, as McLaren hadn't looked particularly special at this point.

Of the other bigger players, Ferrari occupied the weird and nebulous hinterland of "there or thereabouts" with Red Bull, both cars splitting the Red Bull pair in FP1 and Lewis Hamilton resuming that role in the second session. In FP2, Charles Leclerc had his best lap chalked off for track limits, while George Russell and Oscar Piastri had not really entered the frame at this juncture. Piastri at least had the excuse of being derailed by a suspected hydraulics issue, which cost him the tail end of FP1 and the first 20 minutes of the second session, but Russell once more appeared to struggle.

Russell's Mona Lisa analogy, in which he suggested on Thursday that anyone would struggle to replicate it even with Leonardo da Vinci's expressionless portrait in front of them, demonstrated the difficulty that he's faced so far this year. It's been a struggle to drive these new cars, he says, even though he knows how to do so in theory. Hence the 1.285s gulf between he and Antonelli after FP2. 

While Russell attempts to grapple with the 2026 approach, Antonelli has simply got on with the task at hand and continues to excel. It's been a bumpy ride over the past three rounds, with issues at Barcelona and Silverstone severely denting his points tally, but he's the early favourite once again in Belgium.

Are there any clear competitors emerging? For now, it's hard to say - and we have Pierre Gasly's shunt to thank for the lack of clarity.

Can Antonelli be beaten?

Antonelli set the pace - but his long run was one of many interrupted by the late red flag

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As the customary long-runs were just getting into their stride, Gasly lost the rear of his Alpine at Turn 13 - the second part of Les Fagnes - and clipped the wall as he washed wide into the gravel. His car shed its rear wing on impact, necessitating that he stop trackside to avoid the ire of the stewards and to minimise any potential damage to the gearbox. The red flag and clean-up operation wiped out over 10 minutes of the session, effectively cutting out the long runs entirely.

With the incomplete runs from FP2 that we do have, we can barely compare Verstappen's seven-lap stint to Antonelli's four on the medium tyre. While a handful of drivers logged longer runs in FP1, it's preferable not to use these given the advances in set-up and deployment strategies that the teams make between sessions. Regardless, it's all we've got - so we'll look at both.

In FP1, Verstappen logged a six-lap stint on the mediums, while Antonelli did an eight-lap stretch. Verstappen was, on average, 0.220s faster through the stint per lap in the first session. There was a shift in the second session, however; Antonelli was 0.365s faster per lap on average over the Dutchman, but with a shorter stint overall. Throwing the two stints together, Verstappen is 0.091s per lap up on the Mercedes.

That being said, the improvement from session to session in Verstappen's car equated to 0.168s, while Antonelli's average went up by 0.755s - again, with the caveat of a shorter stint in FP2. Taking Verstappen's first four laps of the FP2 stint to compare to Antonelli directly, the Mercedes is just over a tenth per lap clear. We'll have to wait for the indications from FP3 and if Mercedes makes a further step forward, but it is demonstrably close on this basis. 

"It was a massive turnaround with the car because FP1 we struggle a lot, a lot more than anticipated," Antonelli reckoned. "It was a good change but of course a lot of work to do because Red Bull is quick, McLaren was up there, so just need to put things together. But yeah, long run felt very strong as well but obviously the car changed quite a bit between the two sessions. A lot of work to do overnight in order to be ready for tomorrow and on Sunday."

Verstappen showed race pace that could theoretically match Antonelli

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There's not a lot to work with when it comes to working out whether Ferrari can play a part in the race, but Hamilton's average 1m51.871s stint from FP1 was quicker than Verstappen's average 1m52.045s stint from the same session - although the seven-time champion did one fewer lap. If it can unlock the qualifying pace that it demonstrated in Austria and Silverstone, Ferrari might be able to play some part at Spa-Francorchamps; it has yet to do so on a single lap thus far, as Leclerc and Hamilton seemed to struggle with the rear end through the sessions.

And then there's McLaren. On first glance, it looks like the Woking team's race stints from FP1 were mind-bendingly quick; Piastri threw together a five-lap spell on the medium with an average lap of 1m50.665s - over a second per lap of what Hamilton could produce in that session. But this suggests that it was doing a low-fuel run, as if to more accurately simulate an end-of-race stint. 

If the Belgian Grand Prix is going to provide a straightforward one-stopper, then the difference between success and failure will be determined by the delta between the hard and the medium tyre. And if a team can get the hards to run at medium-tyre pace in the opening stint on full tanks, then it leaves them in a very good place for the end of the race.

Thanks to Gasly's shunt in FP2, it's all a bit up in the air. But unpredictability is never a bad thing...

Can Ferrari challenge for a third win this weekend?

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