Max Verstappen led Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton in FP2 at the 2021 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix, a session that was red flagged twice due to incidents such as Verstappen’s late fall.
As in the earlier FP1 session on Friday in Spa, FP2 started thanks to the rain between the two hour-long training sessions in wet conditions, although a clear dry line was already visible when Bottas led a small group of runners on intermediates when the pit lane opened.
Bottas, Kimi Räikkönen, Pierre Gasly, Sebastian Vettel and Lando Norris completed early installation laps on the Inters before pitting to switch to slicks – led by McLaren driver Norris.
He drove the first timed lap of the session – a 1: 48.219 minutes – on the hard compound tires that Norris beat with 1: 47.138 minutes on the next tour of his run.
As the rest of the track dried up quickly, the rest of the field immediately turned up on slicks and the times tumbled quickly – with Esteban Ocon being the fastest on the hard tires after 15 minutes thanks to his 1: 46.638 minutes.
That was soon beaten by Nicholas Latifis 1: 46.198 minutes on the medium-sized tire before the Williams driver was snatched by Bottas with 1: 44.513 minutes – the Mercedes also drives with the yellow-walled rubber.
Verstappen moved in behind Bottas before being overtaken by Hamilton, who at the time was just 0.031 seconds behind his team-mate.
At halftime, the Mercedes drivers were among the first to mount the soft tires to complete the qualifying simulation, but strangely, neither Bottas nor Hamilton improved their personal bests on the softer rubber – although the latter was the fastest time in the middle sector at the time.
When Verstappen appeared on the red-walled rubber a few minutes later, the Red Bull driver flew to the top with 1: 44.472 minutes – he beat Hamilton’s fastest time in the technical middle sector, before losing something to his personal best in the last third.
But it was still enough to give Verstappen the top spot with 0.041 seconds ahead of Bottas’ best time on the averages, while Hamilton is 0.072 seconds behind his time on the averages.
Fernando Alonso set the fourth fastest time for Alpine, ahead of Gasly and Lance Stroll.
Esteban Ocon finished seventh after experiencing a wild spin approaching the 40 minute mark when he lost the rear of his Alpine as he exited the Fanges chicane and a long way down the track towards the first right drove from Stavelot before stopping in the wrong direction and then recovering into the pits with no damage other than a ruined set of softs.
Vettel, Norris and Sergio Perez completed the top 10 after qualifying simulations, with the Red Bull driver being another runner to score his best FP2 time on the media.
In the absence of further rain, the teams were able to switch to their typical late, high fuel consumption FP2 runs to gather information for the long races of the race, but that part of the session was severely disrupted.
First, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who ended up in the final standings only 15 minutes before the end, crashed in the last part of Les Combes after losing the rear of his car while accelerating from the second part on the right.
Leclerc’s attempts to intercept the incident got him onto the curbs on the inside of the sequence and he slid into the barriers between turns 6 and 7, tearing the left front of his car and bringing out the red flags.
After a short delay to recover the Ferrari, the session resumed 10 minutes before the end and most of the field was at the end of the pit lane.
The starting shot for another high-fuel run was interrupted when Verstappen crashed three minutes before the end – also in the last part of Les Combes, Turn 7, although he came out of the curve compared to Leclerc.
Verstappen lost the rear of his RB16B at high speed as he ran through the fast right-hand bend and slid backwards into the guardrails on the outside, damaging both right wheels.
With so little time left and gravel strewn across the track as a result of the incident, the FP2 was not restarted.
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