F1 News, Reports and Race Results

Verstappen leads Ricciardo in FP2 at Spa

Max Verstappen led team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in a Red Bull one-two during the second free practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix.

With Mercedes having been the only team to run the supersoft tyre during FP1, the rest of the field tried the faster compound int he second session and duly improved, with Verstappen setting the pace on a 1:48.085. The Dutchman was 0.25s clear of team-mate Ricciardo, with Nico Hulkenberg half a second adrift for Force India in third place.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth quickest despite a somewhat messy session, with the Ferrari driver twice going off at Turn 5. Vettel was a little over 0.9s slower than Verstappen, splitting the two Force Indias with Sergio Perez in fifth place.

FP1 pacesetter Nico Rosberg was the lead Mercedes in sixth place, with the German's best lap of 1:49.161 coming on the soft compound tyre. Behind Rosberg, Kimi Raikkonen - who received criticism from Verstappen over team radio for "dangerous" blocking during the session - Romain Grosjean, Jenson Button and Esteban Gutierrez rounded out the top ten.

Lewis Hamilton ended the session 13th quickest as he too only used the prototype soft Pirelli compound tyre, focusing on race pace as Mercedes confirmed he will have at least a 30-place grid penalty after taking a complete new power unit ahead of FP2.

There was encouragement for Manor as Pascal Wehrlein was 11th quickest, 1.6s off the pace and nearly a second faster than new team-mate Esteban Ocon. Such was the close nature of the field, Ocon was down in 21st place with only Felip Nasr slower than the Frenchman.

Fernando Alonso recovered from a lack of running in FP1 to set the 12th fastest time, with McLaren having completely replaced his power unit as a result of a water leak in the opening session. The change sees Alonso use his sixth of each component to ensure he has the latest specification of Honda engine, carrying a 35-place grid penalty as a result.

Often hiding pace on a Friday, the Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa were 16th and 17th respectively, with Bottas needing an ECU change which limited his running in the middle of the session.

Another driver suffering from reliability issues was Jolyon Palmer, who stopped at Turn 9 after suffering a loss of power. Palmer remained in his car for a number of minutes behind the barrier and managed to restart the car on the MGU-K, allowing him to return to the pits and rejoin the session later on.

AS IT HAPPENED: Belgian Grand Prix - FP2

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:48.085	27
02	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:48.341	27
03	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:48.657	30
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:49.023	28
05	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:49.100	27
06	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:49.161	33
07	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:49.244	30
08	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:49.419	20
09	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:49.419	23
10	Esteban Gutierrez	Haas	1:49.648	23
11	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	1:49.716	31
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:49.772	30
13	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:49.782	33
14	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:49.916	25
15	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:50.083	27
16	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:50.151	19
17	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:50.157	29
18	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:50.194	25
19	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	1:50.375	34
20	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:50.562	32
21	Esteban Ocon	Manor	1:50.659	25
22	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:50.719	24

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.