Practice pace on Friday at Spa-Francorchamps presented a more muddled picture than you would normally expect at what has traditionally been a ‘power' circuit. Nearly a full second separated the top six cars during their soft-tyre qualifying simulations during the second practice session, and only Lando Norris came within two tenths of the benchmark set by championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
Norris found nearly 1.8s between FP1 and FP2, but neither he nor McLaren technical director Neil Houldey were optimistic that second place genuinely reflected the car's position in the pecking order. In any case, Norris faces a grid penalty for taking new power unit components this weekend.
