Antonelli tops FP2 as Gasly crashes heavily at Spa

Alpine's Pierre Gasly caused a red flag with a heavy crash in Friday practice at the Belgian Grand Prix as Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli set out his stall for the weekend with the fastest time.

Gasly lost control on the exit of the Fagnes medium-speed chicane in the middle sector and clipped the barrier, tearing off his right rear wheel.

The incident cut short the race-simulation runs in the final part of the session and will lead to a long night for Gasly's team.

The Frenchman said: "Overall it was a good day of testing. Just need to work on what happened in the P2.

"I just had a big snap, lost the car, but it was a huge snap and it took a lot longer to recover and by the time I recovered I was already off the track and could not get back on track."

Team principal Steve Nielsen added: "A small mistake, which on other tracks would have been fine, but on this track you get punished for it in certain places."

Antonelli, meanwhile, started the weekend as if he was determined to turn around the decline in his fortunes in which team-mate George Russell has cut his championship lead from 68 points to 25 over the last three races.

The 19-year-old Italian was 0.190 seconds quicker than McLaren's Lando Norris in second place - and a massive 1.285secs quicker than Russell.

"Rears [tyres] felt too cold, sliding a lot," Russell said over the team radio during the session. "But not 1.2 seconds cold."

Antonelli, who was only sixth fastest and Russell eighth in the first session, said: "Was a massive turnaround with the car, because P1 we struggled a lot.

"It was a good change but of course a lot of work to do because Red Bull is quick, McLaren was up there. Long run felt very strong as well."

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added: "It was a messy first session where we didn't have the car in the right place. We thought there'd be more grip than there was, but the drivers were a lot happier with the car in the afternoon.

"Not a great lap for George but it was only one lap. If that doesn't go well you look like you're off the pace.

"He felt he didn't have the tyres ready for the start of the lap. A few corners were it looks like he might have underestimated the grip level."

Antonelli was also in impressive form on the few long-run laps completed in the session, emerging 0.3secs quicker than Norris on average and 0.4secs clear of Russell.

Norris said: "P1 not great. P2 a little bit happier, I am still not very happy with the car, it is still very difficult to drive but we seemed a bit closer, but we are always pretty close on Friday in practice, I think we just show more pace than our competitors. We shouldn't expect anything differently from normal."

The world champion confirmed he, like all the drivers, was suffering for the energy-hungry nature of the circuit. This is leading the cars to run out of electrical energy on the straights, meaning the engines go into recovery mode and the cars lose speed long before the end of the straights, a phenomenon known in F1 as "clipping".

"There is just lack of deployment everywhere," Norris said. "Every single straight. The worst one is through Blanchimont. We go from almost 320km/h to almost 270km/h because we just have no battery left. Every single straight we're clipping."

Max Verstappen's Red Bull, third fastest on the single-lap qualifying simulation runs, was matched with Antonelli on his long run, when equalised for traffic and length.

Verstappen, who topped the opening session, said: "It has been all right for me, didn't have big problems, the car has been in quite a good window. You see the real gap but it is nothing shocking, it is expected.

"It is just a bit of a tough track with the energy management, seems like we're a bit slow on the straight compared to some of our competitors, but balance-wise it was OK."

Hamilton was 0.747secs off the pace as Ferrari struggled with the age-old Spa compromise of working out the right downforce level to ensure competitive straight-line speed, while having enough downforce for speed in the corners of the middle of the lap.

"Spa is still amazing to drive," said the 41-year-old. "Through corners is great, it's just on the straights the engine dies. I don't know what they're going to do to fix that in the future - the engine should just keep pulling.

"We are pretty much there in the [deployment] window, I don't think we're down on the straights, it's just the middle sector is looking a little slow for us but we will hopefully make a step overnight.

"It feels a little downforce-related. The balance is good in general but you'd have more load on the car if you could. But then you need the speed on the straights. We will do a deep dive to figure out how we can figure out how to pick up the middle sector and not lose."

Norris is one of a number of drivers who face a grid penalty this weekend, after exceeding his permitted number of batteries.

He is joined by Red Bull's Isack Hadjar, fifth fastest overall behind Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari, and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.

The championship gap has closed largely because of problems for Antonelli, who retired from second place in the Barcelona Grand Prix, and lost a probable victory at Silverstone last time out by a wheel fairing failure and then a penalty, which dropped him out of the points.

Russell also took an impressive win in Austria, just fending off Verstappen and Antonelli, for his first victory since the first grand prix of the season in Australia.

Behind the top six of Antonelli, Norris, Verstappen, Hamilton and Hadjar, McLaren's Oscar Piastri, Alpine's Franco Colapinto, Russell and the Racing Bulls of Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson completed the top 10 ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen was complaining about gearshifts, as he so often does, but his pace was encouraging considering the team have had to shelve their 'flip-flop' rear wing after consecutive crashes for the Dutchman in high-speed corners in Austria and at Silverstone.

The failure was that the wing was closing too much, removing the so-called 'slot gap' between the main plane and flap, meaning the car had less downforce than the driver expected on corner entry.

Reverting to the standard wing, which opens like the old DRS overtaking aid, is said by insiders to cost around 0.2secs a lap.

Technical director Pierre Wache said: "It is a mechanical problem that we spot after the accident in Silverstone. We fixed it. It [the car] should be ready and bulletproof.

"I don't want to be too precise on what we are doing because it is a performance benefit to use it. But we take it seriously, we discuss with the FIA because it is our duty to make the car safe and you will see the wing back soon."

Red Bull hope to have a revised version of the new wing ready for the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend.

Racing Bulls have an upgrade on Lindblad's car this weekend. The team decided to give it to the Briton rather than Lawson after an agreement that the driver who qualified ahead at the British Grand Prix would have the new parts for Spa.

Lawson will get the next upgrade later in the year, which is also expected only to be ready for one driver initially, team principal Alan Permane said.