Kimi Antonelli rebounded from a subdued morning to top the timesheets in second practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, as the championship leader’s Mercedes teammate George Russell languished in eighth, more than a second adrift. The Italian teenager’s lap of 1:45.944 on soft tyres at Spa-Francorchamps displaced McLaren’s Lando Norris by 0.190 seconds, with Max Verstappen third for Red Bull. The turnaround was stark: in the earlier session Antonelli had been only sixth, complaining of an unstable car, while Russell was eighth. Overnight setup changes transformed the handling, Antonelli said, though he cautioned that “still a lot of work” remained.

The day had begun with Verstappen setting the pace in FP1, clocking 1:47.070 to lead the two Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. Red Bull reverted to a conventional rear wing after the experimental ‘Macarena’ design was blamed for high-speed crashes in Austria and Britain. Verstappen later reported gearshift problems that sent him into a gravel trap, triggering a brief red flag, but he described the overall balance as “a good day”. Norris, the reigning world champion, faces a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding power-unit component limits, a handicap that coloured his assessment: “We are still probably the fourth fastest car,” he said, despite finishing second in FP2.

The session was interrupted for 13 minutes when Pierre Gasly crashed heavily at Les Fagnes. The Alpine driver lost the rear of his car, struck the barrier and sheared off the rear wing. Gasly emerged unhurt but the incident left his team with a repair job overnight. His teammate Franco Colapinto, who had been 15th in FP1, improved to seventh in the second session, the best of the rest behind the top six. Ferrari’s afternoon was mixed: Hamilton took fourth, but Leclerc could manage only 11th after a scrappy lap, while Aston Martin remained anchored at the bottom, with Fernando Alonso returning to the cockpit after sitting out FP1 and finishing last.

Viewed from Italian media, Antonelli’s recovery underlined Mercedes’ ability to find pace between sessions, a trait that has yielded pole position at every race this season. British analysts noted Russell’s radio complaint of cold rear tyres and a gap that “does not represent what George is capable of”, according to trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. With Antonelli holding a 25-point championship lead over Russell and 32 over Hamilton, Saturday’s qualifying will test whether the one-lap order seen in FP2 holds, or whether Verstappen and the Ferraris can close the gap on the long Spa lap.