Belgian GP practice: Max Verstappen fastest for Red Bull despite crash

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ended Friday practice with a crash after setting the fastest time ahead of both Mercedes drivers at the Belgium Grand Prix.

The Dutchman, who is eight points behind Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the championship, lost control of the car into the wall, prematurely ending the session.

“I just lost the rear, a bit too much oversteer to correct and unfortunately hit the wall,” Verstappen said after the crash.

He was 0.039 seconds quicker than Valtteri Bottas, with Hamilton further behind (0.031secs behind his team-mate) in third place.

Verstappen’s quickest time was on the soft-compound tyre, theoretically the quickest, whereas the Mercedes drivers’ best laps were on the medium.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc also had a crash, his at the Les Combes chicane just one corner before Verstappen’s incident, which ended Leclerc’s session midway through, causing a brief red-flag period for the car to be removed.

Leclerc said: “It has been a very tricky day overall, for everyone because of the conditions. But we have one night to work on the car and come back stronger.

“I would have preferred not to end the day in the wall, but it is part of free practice and I will try not to do these mistakes later.

“It felt quite good [in the first session] but P2 didn’t feel great. We need to understand it because we did not change too much on the car.”

In addition, both Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen and Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda spun at the La Source hairpin early in the first session, in which the Finn later also crashed into the pit wall on his way into the pits.

PHOTO/COURTESY