Bottas leads Hamilton and Verstappen in opening Spa practice

Birthday boy Valtteri Bottas, who turned 31 today, nipped Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in opening Belgium GP practice at Spa Friday morning. Bottas put up a lap at 1m44.493s to beat his teammate by just 0.069s.

Max Verstappen was close behind in the Red Bull, just 0.081s back in third.

The two ‘Pink’ Mercedes of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll rounded out the top-5.

The two Ferraris of Leclerc and Vettel were mired down in 13th and 14th as Mattia Binotto’s leadership takes Ferrari to the bottom.

Soft tire short runs began with just over 30 minutes of the session remaining, and Hamilton couldn’t match Bottas’s time, a mistake in sector three holding the defending champion back. Verstappen’s very impressive time – he was just 0.012s behind the second Mercedes of Hamilton – put him ahead of both Racing Points, as the Dutchman seems determined to put 2019’s Lap 1 retirement at this race behind him.

Alex Albon made his debut for Red Bull at this track in 2019 and began the weekend just over half a second off his teammate for a P6 finish in FP1.

In sequence, Renault and McLaren occupied P7 to P10 with Esteban Ocon fastest of the quartet, six tenths off top spot. Behind him was McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, who shrugged off a brief DRS issue to finish P8, then Daniel Ricciardo in P9 and Lando Norris P10 – reiterating just how close the midfield battle has been, and will be, this season.

Three drivers missed FP1 in nearly its entirety – Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean for Haas and Antonio Giovinazzi for Alfa. Engine issues cost Haas their morning, while the Alfa man had ‘technical’ issues. All three will be hopeful of making up for lost time this afternoon.

Practice 1 Results