McLaren quickest but must strike the right balance on soggy Saturday · RaceFans

With one of the highest average lap speeds of any circuit on the calendar and one of the longest full-throttle stretched on the entire calendar from La Source to Les Combes, it’s easy to think of Spa-Francorchamps as a low-downforce circuit. A power circuit. But it is not quite that.

It’s a Jekyll and Hyde track. As well as the flat-out sequences in the first and final sectors, the middle sector, from Les Combes to Curva Paul Frere, is all mid- and high-speed corners which reward downforce and aerodynamic efficiency handsomely.

So more than most circuits, Spa is about either striking a compromise, or taking a risk between picking lower downforce for the straights or higher downforce for the middle sector.

So it was little surprise to see many teams splitting their downforce approaches between both of their cars. Red Bull were one among many. Max Verstappen appearing to be running a lower downforce setting than his team mate, evidenced by how Perez was consistently slower than his team mate at the end of the Kemmel Straight and after Blanchimont, while Perez would carry more speed through Pouhon and Piff Paff among others.

After two hours of dry running to start the weekend, McLaren appeared to have started this weekend where they had left the last by being the quickest cars on Friday. Lando Norris was two tenths of a second quicker than team mate Oscar Piastri over their respective fastest laps on fresh soft tyres mid way through the second practice session, but Verstappen’s effort was virtually identical to Piastri’s.

The apparent pace of the McLaren, it would have been thought, would have left their drivers very optimistic about their prospects for the rest of the weekend. Especially as wherever Verstappen qualifies on Saturday, he will start ten places lower on the grid thanks to the penalty that was confirmed today for using his fifth internal combustion engine.

Instead, however, the McLaren mood was more subdued. Norris admitted he had not felt comfortable with his car across the two sessions, while Piastri remained very wary of the potential threat from Verstappen, even with his grid penalty.

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“It’s better than if he was starting at the front,” Piastri said after the second session. “I don’t think you can count him out. It’s a track that they’ve been very quick at the last couple of years. They look quick this…