REPORT: Spa weekend started

The team have recorded over 600 kilometres of running across both of Friday’s Practice sessions for the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

It has been a mixed opening day for the team at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, with Alex Albon finishing FP1 up in P3, a position he later admitted wasn’t fully representative of our pace.

His 1:44.099 remained a solid foundation upon which to build upon, with Logan Sargeant in P15 with a best time of 1:45.311.

The sunshine disappeared for FP2, and the temperatures dropped a touch. We completed just a single push lap on the soft compound - Alex’s 1:43.892 placing him in P17 with Logan’s 1:44.226 seeing him end the day in P18.

“Today we were able to test everything we wanted in both Free Practice sessions,” Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, shared as he reflected on our day.

“Alex was fairly happy straight away with the car and has a few areas he wants to improve for tomorrow.

“Logan wasn’t happy with the car but after good work with his team, he made a good step in the right direction after completing FP2.

“Tonight, there is still work to do to improve the car, but we are in Spa and inevitably the weather will change drastically for tomorrow.

“Rain is expected which will make things more complicated but will also create opportunities, so we have to be on it from FP3 onwards.”

Alex Albon continued on a similar theme, saying: “The car felt fine today; FP1 was really strong but not as representative of our actual pace.

“FP2, we reversed in the time sheets, but I think we’re somewhere in between.

“We had a good stint on the Mediums, then we put the Softs on and had a lot of traffic and messy running around us, but I don’t think we’re in a bad position despite some areas we need to improve.

“Looking to tomorrow, I think with some setup and tyre work we’ll be in the fight for Q3 but let’s see.”

Logan Sargeant rounded out our reaction by commenting: “It hasn’t been an easy day.

“I feel like I was missing something personally, which I was starting to find by the end of FP2, so it’s trending in the right direction at least, but we have our work cut out. “We will keep chipping away at it and get the car into a better window. Tomorrow still looks tricky as it looks like it will be wet, so this weekend is far from over.

“The weather throws a new curveball, and you never know what that will bring.”