Sebastian Vettel made the ideal start to the Belgian Grand Prix weekend by leading first practice on Friday morning.
The German posted a 1m44.358s on the Soft compound tyre with just under half an hour to go to move ahead of Max Verstappen by a tenth-and-a-half around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
With Ferrari expected to have a strong advantage on the straight of the first and third sectors, thanks to a new upgraded engine, it is up to Mercedes and Red Bull to try and minimise the gap through less downforce or grip in the technical middle sector.
In the case of the latter, optimising top speed is very much the approach taken with wing levels akin to Monza on the RB14. Mercedes appear to have gone more conventional so far with Lewis Hamilton three-tenths down on his main championship rival in third albeit on the slower Medium compound.
Known as a Spa specialist, Kimi Raikkonen almost matched the Briton in fourth with fellow countryman Valtteri Bottas fifth a further 0.006s behind.
For the Finn though this weekend is already about damage limitation as Mercedes also bring an upgraded power unit although it will mean Bottas starts from the back of the grid for exceeding his allocation for the season
As a result, the Finn likely focused on long run pace as he was the first of the drivers to post his best on the Supersoft tyre, the fastest rubber made available by Pirelli for this weekend.
An engine issue looked like keeping Daniel Ricciardo out for the entire session, after occurring on his installation lap, but the Red Bull team managed to get him out for one timed lap at the end as he finished sixth albeit 1.2 seconds slower than Vettel.
It was still enough for the Australian to be clear of the chasing midfield which saw Force India and Renault leading with Esteban Ocon seventh ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in eighth.
Their respective teammates Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz completed the top 10 as the expected strength of the Ferrari-powered teams, Haas and Sauber, didn’t materialise on Friday morning.
Instead it was Pierre Gasly in 11th for Toro Rosso ahead of Romain Grosjean in the first Haas car in P12 and the two Sauber’s of Charles Leclerc and Marcus Ericsson behind him.
Grosjean’s teammate Kevin Magnussen was only 17th as down at McLaren, Lando Norris made his race weekend debut and would finish a tenth clear of the man he could replace in 2019, Stoffel Vandoorne.
Perhaps unfairly for the Belgian driver though, his session was blighted by brake issues early on as he brought up the order.
Sergey Sirotkin had the only major incident of note as he spun exiting Rivage but continued en route to splitting the two McLaren’s in P19.
Full results for the session can be seen below:
