Piastri’s tempo was based on his tempo in sector two, which options a lot of the corners, the place he was 0.298secs sooner than Norris, who was second quickest via there.
Normally, tempo within the center sector of Spa comes with a compromise – it means working extra downforce, which suggests much less pace on the straights.
Nonetheless, Piastri misplaced solely 0.095secs to Verstappen within the first sector, the place the one ‘nook’ is the opening hairpin, La Supply, as Eau Rouge is taken flat out. And was truly 0.125secs sooner than Verstappen, his closest pursuer, within the ultimate sector.
It’s extremely uncommon for a automotive to point out this efficiency profile at Spa and it appears it’s a results of a brand new rear, more-efficient wing launched by McLaren at this race, which the workforce says produces much less drag for a similar quantity of downforce.
Piastri goes into the dash race at 11:00 BST on Saturday with an eight-point championship lead over Norris.
However he will probably be cautious of the risk from Verstappen on the primary lap with the long term via the Eau Rouge swerves and up the hill to Les Combes.
Verstappen, although, diminished the significance of that, saying: “When you find yourself nearly 0.5secs off, I do not assume going sooner or slower on the straight goes to matter quite a bit. We simply need to do our personal race and see what we are able to do.”
He added: “Being P2 between them is already a superb consequence for us, and I do assume we maximised that. I loved it on the market. The lap itself was high quality. It was good.
“In fact, the hole may be very huge, but it surely’s been huge already from FP1. So there’s not an enormous shock. We simply need to give attention to ourselves and work on the steadiness of the automotive and attempt to go sooner.”
