Vettel puts Ferrari on top in opening Spa practice

Vettel on top in FP1

Sebastian Vettel turned a lap of 1m44.358s to sit 31 after the first practice for the Belgian GP at Spa. His time was 0.151s faster than Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton was third quick for Mercedes 3/10ths back and just slightly faster than the 2nd Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen.

Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top-5 with his new engine installed in his Mercedes.

With both Mercedes and Ferrari unveiling new-spec power units for Spa, FP1 in Belgium was the first opportunity to see which team’s engineers had extracted the most power going into the second half of the season.

And while at first glance, it would appear that Ferrari came away from the session with the early advantage, it’s worth noting that both Mercedes drivers spent most of the session running on the medium tyres, while both Vettel and Raikkonen used the grippier soft tyres,

In the midfield battle, it was the newly-minted Racing Point Force India F1 Team – the same Force India team we saw before the summer break, but racing under a new team entry having come out of administration – who led the way, using their Mercedes power unit to good effect around Spa.

Esteban Ocon finished the session 1.428s off Vettel’s time in seventh, with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg – also running a new unit but set for a grid penalty as a result – 0.165s behind in eighth. Sergio Perez in the second Force India and Carlos Sainz in the second Renault were ninth and 10th, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly, who arrived at the Spa having been confirmed as a Red Bull driver for 2019.

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