Spa, FP1: Bottas quickest as F1 resumes at Spa-Francorchamps

After its traditional summer break Formula 1 returned to action at Spa-Francorchamps this morning, with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas quickest in the opening practice session for the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. The Finn set beat title hopeful Max Verstappen by just under two tenths of a second as championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished in 18th place.

The one-hour session got off to a slow start as rain the hours preceding the start of running meant that the track was still damp and teams opted to wait out the opening minutes as the track began to dry.

A number of drivers took the track on intermediates, but after 10 minutes it became clear that dry weather tyres were necessary. McLaren’s Lando Norris led the way on me3dium tyres but the Briton was soon eclipsed by Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and then by Daniel Riccardo in the second McLaren, Pierre Gasly of AlphaTauri and then by Hungary race winner Esteban Ocon who put his Alpine in P1.

Verstappen then emerged in hard tyres and promptly bounced the French driver out of top sport with a lap of 1:46.879s. Over the course of a long run he then whittled the benchmark down to 1:45.905 before teams began to make a switch to soft tyres.

As the session entered its final quarter Bottas jumped P1 with a softy-tyre lap of 1:45.199s. Hamilton though was struggling with a larger wing than his team-mate and the Briton complained that he had poor straightline speed.

However, despite his difficulties, Hamilton looked set to edge past his team-mate on soft tyres but unfortunately he was slowed when he came across Williams’ Nicholas Latifi at the Bus Stop chicane and his run was compromised.

Verstappen then also moved to soft tyres in the final phase of the session but he failed to dislodge Bottas and had to settle for second place, 0.164 behind the Mercedes man.

Drizzle was now beginning to fall and that meant little hope of late improvement. Hamilton therefore was left languishing in P18 on the timesheet.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took third place at the flag ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque driver’s team-mate Carlos Sainz finished fifth, while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was sixth ahead of Vettel and Norris, with Ocon and his Alpine team-mate Fernando Alonso rounding out the top 10.