Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri showed the pace of the McLaren by securing a one-two in second practice at the Belgian Grand Prix – with Max Verstappen set for a 10-place grid drop for Sunday’s race.
A week on from the intra-team row in Hungary, Norris was the quicker of the two drivers by 0.215 seconds, with reigning world champion Verstappen in third place – all on the soft C4 tyre.
Red Bull’s Verstappen has taken his fifth internal combustion engine (ICE) at Spa-Francorchamps – exceeding his allocated number of power units for the season.
The two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were fourth and fifth respectively, but the gap to Norris was more than half a second for Leclerc and 0.838secs for Sainz.
George Russell ended his hour in sixth place while Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton was 10th. The Silver Arrows have brought further upgrades for this weekend’s race but during the opening session, both drivers complained of balance issues with the car.
Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who only managed one lap in first practice because of a suspected water leak, was seventh fastest, with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen and the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez eighth and ninth respectively.
After topping second practice, Norris – who is 76 points behind leader Verstappen in the drivers’ championship after finishing second to Piastri at the Hungarian Grand Prix – said he still needs to find “rhythm” with his car.
“I’ve just not felt very comfortable today with the car, so hopefully I’ll just wake up tomorrow and feel a bit more comfortable with it,” said the 24-year-old Briton.
“We did try and improve a few things but I don’t know, we looked good on the timesheets but I did not feel super-comfortable with going out and doing it.”
Norris said McLaren had a “prepared well and had a good set-up on the car”, but added: “Just from my side, [in terms of] feeling like I could just go out and nail it, I’m not quite there just yet.”