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Team Summary:
With the start of the second Friday practice session for the 2021 Belgian
Grand Prix would see the drivers presented with a wet track. The first
drivers to come out were all on the intermediate tyre. But the track was
dying such that the drivers would pit looking to change to dry weather
tyres. Norris would return on the hard and would set a 1m:48.219 to be the
only time set. More times weer set as Bottas moved to the top of the times
with a 1m:44.513 followed by Hamilton, Verstappen and Gasly. The Williams of
Nicholas was now fifth while the other was 19th. This would become eighth
and 20th as both cars were running on the soft tyre. Verstappen was third
followed by Perez, Gasly, Alonso, Norris, Nicholas, Stroll and Ricciardo.
The top six times had all been set on the medium tyre. Both Mercedes were
now on soft tyre runs with just over thirty minutes remaining.
Vettel on the soft tyre was now fifth behind Alonso who was now fourth. The
Williams drivers were currently 10th and 14th. Even with the soft tyres
drivers were not improving their earlier times with the order Bottas,
Hamilton, Verstappen, Alonso, Stroll, Gasly, Vettel, Perez, Tsunoda and
Norris in tenth. But Ocon would move into seventh and Perez tenth.
Verstappen would set a 1m:44.472 to be quickest ahead of the Mercedes. The
Williams drivers were 13th and 15th but this would become 16th and 17th. The
session would be Red Flagged with a crash from Leclerc going into the
barrier at Turn six. He would lose the car and would almost collect his car
but it would snap and go into the barrier removing the front left corner of
his car. At the time of the Red Flag the Williams drivers were on runs using
the soft and medium tyre.
The session would restart with ten minutes remaining. There was a mix of
tyres being used with all three tyre types out on the track. The Williams
drivers were on a split evaluations using the hard and medium tyre. But
shortly after the restart we would have Verstappen crashed into the barrier
wrecking the rear of his car. The session would again be Red Flagged and
would not be restarted. So with the end of the session the order was
Verstappen, Bottas, Hamilton, Alonso, Gasly, Stroll, Ocon, Vettel, Norris,
and Perez tenth. The Williams drivers would remain 16th and 17th in what
could be considered to be a disappointing result for Williams Racing.
George Russell:
George would be first out for Williams running on the hard tyre. He would
set a 1m:51.835 but was 3.6s off the time of Norris. He would pit after a
four lap run currently tenth. In his pit he would drop to 19th. George had
been on his radio to his engineer seeming to indicate that he was having a
problem. He would eventually return this time on the soft tyre. He would set
a 1m:46.665 to now be 13th. He was 0.467 off Nicholas's medium tyre time
pitting after a five lap soft tyre run. He would return again on the soft
tyre but would have to pit with a Red Flag. With the restart he would return
using the hard tyre. But with a second Red Flag he would pit remaining 17th.
Nicholas Latifi:
Nicholas would follow his team-mate out but was on the medium tyre. Nicholas
would set a 1m:49.669 to be sixth and would improve with a 1m:46.198 to be
quickest. But he would drop to second. His time was a second faster than he
did in FP1. He would pit after a five lap run currently sixth. But he would
return for a soft tyre run but would fail to improve dropping to 11th as he
pitted from a five lap soft tyre run. Nicholas would return this time on the
medium tyre but would be forced to pit with a Red Flag. Nicholas would
return using the medium tyre but would also have to pit with a second Red
Flag remaining 16th. |