Lewis Hamilton after P4 in Belgian practice: Is Ferrari facing a penalty?

A few years ago, RTL GP expert Christian Danner put it very well: “Interpreting the results of Friday practice sessions is, to a large extent, like reading tea leaves.”

In the first practice session at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Max Verstappen set the fastest time, ahead of the two Ferrari drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. Mercedes were only in P6 (Kimi Antonelli) and P8 (George Russell).

In the second practice session, however, it was a completely different picture: championship leader Kimi Antonelli was on top, followed by world champion Lando Norris, then Max Verstappen. As for Ferrari: they were down to P4 (Hamilton) and P11 (Leclerc).

Hamilton on the first day in Belgium: “Things went a little better than we’d expected in the first practice session, but in the second session some of our rivals stepped up their pace, and that gave us a slightly more realistic picture.”

“Our Ferrari isn’t quite right yet; we’re losing too much time in the middle section of the track, and we need to get to the bottom of that.”

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“Spa is still Spa, and the corners are simply brilliant. But at the end of the straights you just run out of juice – there’s nothing you can do about that. I’m not sure if we can get much more out of it in terms of fine-tuning.”

“But we absolutely have to improve in that middle section of the track. The car’s balance isn’t bad; we’re simply lacking downforce. Perhaps we need to find a different compromise between aerodynamic drag and downforce.”

“As far as the balance of power is concerned, Mercedes remains the benchmark for me. McLaren seems to be very strong in fast corners, and we’ve got plenty of those here in Belgium.”

The true balance of power on this historic Belgian circuit is obscured by various factors: the drivers haven’t been running their engines at full power, they’re carrying different fuel loads, and on top of that, various drivers are struggling with issues – see Hamilton’s comments regarding set-up. Silverstone winner Charles Leclerc was slower on soft tyres than on medium tyres because he made mistakes.

Speaking of tyres: the FIA, the world motorsport governing body, is investigating. The quartet of stewards – Gerd Ennser (Germany), Matthew Selley (Australia), Pedro Lamy (Portugal) and Loic Bacquelaine (Belgium) – have invited representatives of the Italian team to a meeting.

The Formula 1 Technical Delegate, Jo Bauer of Germany, reported to the stewards after the first practice session that Ferrari had not complied with the regulations regarding tyre management.

And this is what Jo Bauer’s report states: “After FP1, the Scuderia Ferrari HP Team electronically returned two sets of dry-weather tyres each for car 16 (LEC) and car 44 (HAM) in accordance with Articles B6.4.1 and B6.3.8(a)(iii). However, the tyres in question were not physically returned to the designated tyre supplier before the start of FP2. This is not in compliance with Article B6.4.2.”

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has admitted that his team returned the tyres too late, “but I’m only expecting a fine”. Vasseur did not give any reasons for the mistake.

The Frenchman should, of course, know that whilst such offences are rare, the race stewards can get rather cross about them.

In Germany in 2016, Force India (now Aston Martin) returned a different set of tyres to the one specified electronically. As a result, a set of tyres was brought onto the track during qualifying that should, in fact, have been returned.

The race stewards subsequently imposed a penalty on Nico Hülkenberg, demoting him by one place on the starting grid.