What we took from disrupted Belgian GP long run picture

Pierre Gasly sliding off the track into the gravel and into the barriers at Spa ruined many drivers’ long runs during second practice at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix.

That’s led to an incomplete long-run picture, but there are still some clues we can take from Friday’s running… 

Single-lap pace 

Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m45.944s
Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.190s
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.472s
Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.747s
Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) +0.770s
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.982s
Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.203s
George Russell (Mercedes) +1.285s
Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) +1.350s
Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1.490s
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +1.524s

FP2 long runs 

Antonelli 1m51.511s (4 laps)
Verstappen 1m51.876s (7 laps) 
Russell 1m51.980s (3 laps) 
Hadjar 1m52.449s (6 laps) 

Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes continues to look in fine form with a short but consistent long run, with all four laps separated by less than three tenths of a second.

He was complaining of an edgy car in FP1, but Mercedes made “massive changes” between sessions and he felt much better in FP2.

Team-mate George Russell looked a step behind on both single-lap and long-run pace. He was down on power because of an issue in FP1, which was fixed for FP2.

The Mercedes deployment trick The Race revealed at Silverstone appears to be back at Spa with both drivers lifting off just before the start/finish line - but Russell’s lift on his quickest FP2 lap was much bigger than Antonelli’s, and he lost half a second there.

Russell is shipping much of that 1.285s laptime loss on the straights versus Antonelli, in line with a straightline deficit he’s previously complained of, and something that would suggest he’s not harvesting energy as efficiently as Antonelli. 

Red Bull might have had to park its flamboyant ‘Macarena’ rear wing this weekend, but the RB22 looked solid in the hands of Max Verstappen, despite complaints of “unacceptable” gear shifts. 

Verstappen explained those complaints after FP2: “I'm always very sensitive to these things because I want to work on that and improve it. 

“There was a software update, or downgrade, that took a bit of time for the shifts to learn, and it got a bit better again at the end.” 

Verstappen completed the longest long run, yet he split the Mercedes duo and looked solid over a single lap too.

Team-mate Isack Hadjar was a clear step behind, although his weekend’s already been massively compromised by a back-of-the-grid penalty for multiple engine component changes that exceed his 2026 allowance. 

Lando Norris says the McLaren is “still very, very difficult to drive” and said while McLaren seems “relatively competitive” at Spa “we shouldn’t expect anything different from normal”. 

Norris faces a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday anyway due to taking his fourth battery of the season. 

Ferrari remains the big unknown as Charles Leclerc was only a lap into his long run when the red flag was flown, while Lewis Hamilton hadn’t even properly started his. Its single-lap pace wasn’t great, but there have been plenty of underwhelming Fridays that have turned into very good Saturdays and Sundays for Ferrari. 

Team boss Fred Vasseur also pointed to another big variable on Friday at Spa - vastly different energy deployment strategies.

“Without disclosing any secret, but if you have a look on the race trace, we were 20km/h slower than some of our competitors before Les Combes, but we were 20km/h faster in the last straight line,” Vasseur said.

“It's a trade-off for sure. It's not that you can do a plus 20[km/h] and plus 20[km/h].” 

The run to Les Combes is the perfect example of how differently Mercedes and Ferrari are approaching those deployment strategies right now (as this intertwining GP Tempo shows, with Hamilton’s fastest FP2 lap in red and Antonelli’s FP2 benchmark in green).

You’d expect strategies to converge more by Saturday, and that means there’s plenty of room for the pecking order to shift. 

As McLaren said in its post-Friday summary: "At a circuit where differences in energy deployment and maximum performance extraction play a key role, the current pecking order remains far from fixed, and today's result does not portray the true competitive standing."

The midfield long runs were disrupted too, so it’s hard to validate whether Alpine is back in the fight with a Racing Bulls team that’s now only one point behind it for fifth in the constructors’ championship.

Franco Colapinto certainly feels Alpine has “found a little bit of performance this weekend” and is benefitting from the cooler Spa conditions.