Kimi Antonelli wrestled control of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend in the second free practice session, setting a benchmark 1:45.944 that left his championship rivals trailing. The Mercedes driver’s afternoon surge, nearly a full second quicker than his morning effort, overturned a subdued opening session in which Max Verstappen’s Red Bull had unexpectedly led the way. Antonelli’s time, posted on soft tyres after a major set-up overhaul between sessions, placed him 0.190 seconds clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Verstappen a further three tenths back in third.

Verstappen’s early pace, a 1:47.070 in FP1, had hinted at a Red Bull revival on a circuit where the team was forced to revert to an older-specification rear wing following failures in Austria and Britain. The Dutchman described his car’s balance as immediately positive, but a gearshift problem in the afternoon sent him skidding into a gravel trap, triggering a brief red flag. Red Bull’s technical director Pierre Wache acknowledged the older wing costs performance, yet the team’s priority remained ensuring the car was safe. Verstappen himself cautioned that the true competitive order would only emerge on Saturday, noting that Red Bull typically does not reveal its full hand on Fridays.

Ferrari’s day unravelled between sessions. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc had shadowed Verstappen in FP1, finishing second and third, but the Scuderia slipped back in the afternoon. Hamilton held fourth, seven-tenths off Antonelli, while Leclerc tumbled to eleventh after his best soft-tyre lap was deleted for a track limits violation. Hamilton identified a weakness in the middle sector and said the team was investigating, while team principal Fred Vasseur, speaking from the paddock, dismissed Friday’s timesheets as unrepresentative given unknown fuel loads. The Italian squad arrived at Spa buoyed by two wins in three races, but the day’s drift left engineers with work to do overnight.

Norris, the reigning world champion, delivered an eye-catching second place despite carrying a confirmed ten-place grid penalty for exceeding power unit component limits. He remained publicly sceptical, insisting McLaren was still only the fourth-fastest car and that Red Bull and Mercedes had not yet shown their true speed. His teammate Oscar Piastri lost twenty minutes of FP2 to a hydraulic leak, while George Russell, Antonelli’s closest title challenger, finished a distant eighth, 1.2 seconds adrift and complaining of cold rear tyres. The session ended under a second red flag after Pierre Gasly crashed his Alpine heavily at Stavelot, tearing off the rear wing.

With Antonelli holding a 25-point championship lead over Russell and Hamilton a further seven points back, the Spa weekend carries significant weight. Saturday’s qualifying session, where Mercedes has taken pole at every round this season, will offer the first reliable measure of whether the Italian teenager’s Friday advantage is durable or merely a product of a team that, as one engineer put it, knows how to improve rapidly between sessions.