Raikkonen finds few surprises at Spa on Friday

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari - Belgian Grand Prix practice

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen says that Friday's practice sessions at Spa-Francorchamps went pretty much as he had been expecting.

He said there had been few surprises, and the track felt much as he remembered it in 2016.

Technical regulation changes to this year's cars are allowing drivers to take Eau Rouge flat-out. But Raikkonen - a four-time winner of the Belgian Grand Prix - said he hadn't noticed much change.

"We somehow expected how practice was going to be," he said after the end of the day's two 90-minute sessions. Raikkonen was fastest in the morning, but was then pipped by Lewis Hamilton by 0.262s after the lunchtime break.

"It’s hard to compare driving here to a year ago. But it doesn’t feel very different, as we are now quite used to going a bit faster everywhere.

"It was a pretty normal Friday," he continued. "It was not too bad as a start. Obviously there are always things you want to try more and the rain in the end did not help.

"There are things we have to go through to do better, as is the case with any Friday at any race circuit.

"We’ll keep working today, this evening and tomorrow morning, in order to be stronger for qualifying," he said. "There’s no point now to start guessing what the others are doing, we’ll see tomorrow in qualifying

"I’m sure we can be fast," he added.

Hamilton finishes Friday fastest in rain-curtailed FP2

Raikkonen's team mate Sebastian Vettel has a more subdued time on Friday. He was third fastest in the morning, but dropped to fifth - half a second off Hamilton's pace - in the afternoon.

Vettel wasn't feeling disillusioned, however and felt sure there would be more to come from Ferrari on Saturday.

"I am not entirely happy but overall I think the car is okay," he said. "We just need to put a little bit more together.

"This is a long track, so it is not that easy to put everything together. I didn’t really find the rhythm today but the long run was better.

"Overall the car is capable of being fast, but we need to get it right. I need to do my job and I know I can go faster.

"On Friday it is always difficult to judge the situation, because on Saturday it seems that everyone makes a step forward. If we can do that, then we can be very close.

"We are here to give a hard time to our competitors!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.