Kimi Antonelli has topped the timing charts in the second practice session at the Belgian GP, ahead of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. Antonelli's lap time of 1:45.944, the only time within the 1:45s, was what beat Norris to draw a close to Friday's action at the iconic
Spa-Francorchamps.
The session got underway to quite the fast start with championship leader Kimi Antonelli hoping to put a difficult FP1 behind
Mercedes to take top spot - although only 0.011s ahead of Isack Hadjar, who has impressed for Red Bull so far during the Grand Prix weekend.
A Red Flag was then brought out after just 10 minutes, with gravel having been kicked up onto the track at Turn 14's Stavelot. However, it did not take long for the marshals to clean up and for the action to get back underway.
Once back in action, and onto the soft tyres, Antonelli took a big leap in lap time, extending his lead at the top of the timing charts at the halfway point by just under two tenths on Norris, and
four tenths up on a tetchy Verstappen in P3. Antonelli's teammate Russell could only manage P6 after his first soft tyre run - 1.6 seconds behind the Italian.
The Red Flag was brought out once again with just over ten minutes to go - this time for a much more dramatic moment. On the exit of the Fagnes chicane, Pierre Gasly lost the rear of his Alpine, clipping the barriers into a violent spin. Thankfully, the Frenchman avoided injury, as the marshals cleared up a substantial amount of debris.
While Free Practice can give us a decent indication of where everyone lies on the grid, former
F1 driver Karun Chandhok told Sky Sports he believes things could look very different during Saturday's action, given the energy-starved nature of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Chandhok said: "The teams will be doing a lot of number crunching about the energy deployment and trying to find the best way. There will be a lot of work overnight in the factories. I don't think it's a given we will see the same picture tomorrow. I'll be surprised if Verstappen is that far away from Antonelli."
Here are the full results from FP2 at the Belgian GP:
Belgian Grand Prix Results
Practice 1
Practice 2
Practice 3
ALL
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
|---|
| | MercedesMER | - | 1:45.944 |
| | McLarenMCL | - | 1:46.134 |
| | Red Bull RacingRBR | - | 1:46.416 |
| | FerrariFER | - | 1:46.691 |
| | Red Bull RacingRBR | - | 1:46.714 |
| | McLarenMCL | - | 1:46.926 |
| | AlpineALP | - | 1:47.147 |
| | MercedesMER | - | 1:47.229 |
| | Racing BullsRCB | - | 1:47.294 |
| | Racing BullsRCB | - | 1:47.434 |
| | FerrariFER | - | 1:47.468 |
| | HaasHAA | - | 1:47.792 |
| | AudiAUD | - | 1:47.952 |
| | HaasHAA | - | 1:47.958 |
| | WilliamsWIL | - | 1:48.019 |
| | WilliamsWIL | - | 1:48.256 |
| | AudiAUD | - | 1:48.333 |
| | AlpineALP | - | 1:48.955 |
| | CadillacCAD | - | 1:49.199 |
| | CadillacCAD | - | 1:49.596 |
| | Aston MartinAST | - | 1:51.131 |
| | Aston MartinAST | - | 1:51.418 |