The light at the end of the pit lane went green and Formula One was officially back, as the first free practice session for the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix got underway at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. We immediately had nine cars out on track, with Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc initially heading out on intermediate tyres.
Charles noted that the track was already dry at this point and the following lap he returned to the box to move to the hard tyre, while there was a moment of drama in the pit lane as Nicholas Latifi was released right into the path of Max Verstappen, who chose to dart to the inside and overtake Latifi in the pit lane.
However, there were no issues for Verstappen on the track: his first lap time was a 1:47.456, to go 2.2s clear of McLaren’s Lando Norris in second.
There have been reports that Charles Leclerc will be forced to start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid, with Ferrari potentially opting to install a new power unit on his car. It wouldn’t be an ideal start to the final stretch of the season for the Monegasque, who already trails Max Verstappen by 80 points in the world championship. And right during FP1, we officially received the confirmation that Charles Leclerc is among six drivers who will incur a grid penalty on Sunday for taking new engine parts. Joining him at the rear of the grid will be world championship leader Max Verstappen.
The other four drivers taking penalties are Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas and Mick Schumacher.
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Meanwhile, on track Charles went second behind Verstappen, albeit more than two seconds back from the Dutchman. It should be noted that at this stage they were using different tyres, with Verstappen on softs and the Monegasque on hards.
With 20 minutes until the end of FP1, Kevin Magnussen had a technical issue and was forced to park his Haas right on the middle of the track. But it didn’t take too long to get out of the way.
Moments before that red flag, the Ferrari cars made a show of strength. Carlos Sainz went fastest with a 1:46.538, with his Maranello teammate within a tenth of that effort in second. Red Bull’s Dutchman remained third, 0.2s back from Carlos, while George Russell was 0.8s back in fourth for Mercedes, with Lewis Hamilton is ninth, more than a second back from his team-mate. Liam Lawson made his Formula 1 practice debut in Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri as the team fulfilled one of their obligated young driver tests. Lawson was down in 19th, with only Valtteri Bottas, who had yet to set a time at this stage, behind him.
After the recovery of Kevin Magnussen’s car, we were back under way with nine minutes left of the session. There was a big queue in the pit lane and that rush to get back on track made even more sense as several drivers were informed via team radio that rain was expected in the final moments of the session.
The rain did in fact start to fall and that meant the session ended with Carlos Sainz fastest from his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, as nobody was able to set any other final lap times in dry conditions. Max Verstappen wasn’t far back in third.
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