Ferrari and Mercedes closely matched as season resumes at Spa
Thursday 6 December 2018 11:40, UK
An on-form Kimi Raikkonen topped Practice Two ahead of Lewis Hamilton as Ferrari continued their impressive start to the Belgian GP weekend.
After team-mate Sebastian Vettel set the pace earlier in the day, Raikkonen stormed to a 1:43.355 on supersoft tyres in P2 and was 0.167s faster than Hamilton, who couldn't quite nail a lap in his Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas was four tenths of a second back in third in the sister Silver Arrow.
"We've brought a new engine today and everything was running smoothly," said Hamilton. "It's really close between us and Ferrari - it seems like we've both been bringing new updates at a similar rate."
Bottas to start from the back in Belgium
Raikkonen is a four-time winner at Spa and his time capped a promising first day with their upgraded engine for Ferrari, with Mercedes, who also have a new power unit at Spa, unable to match their rivals in either session.
Vettel, however, was some way off the pace in second practice.
The German, aiming to close in on title rival Lewis Hamilton in the championship this weekend, made errors on his first few qualifying-sim runs on the supersofts, the quickest tyre available, and finished 0.7s off his leading team-mate.
Instead, it was Max Verstappen who completed the top four, though the Red Bull driver was also more than half a second adrift of Raikkonen.
Daniel Ricciardo endured a frustrating Friday: He barely ran in Practice One due to a fuel problem in his RB14, and was a distant sixth in P2.
But the newly-named Racing Point Force India enjoyed another strong Spa session as Sergio Perez finished seventh, and Sauber will also be happy with their efforts with both Marcus Ericsson and Charles Leclerc in the top-10.
The Swiss team are out-performing fellow Ferrari-powered customer team Haas so far this weekend.
Fernando Alonso has been dominating headlines off the track as his back-and-forth with Red Bull over a 2019 offer continues, but he got his first taste of the 2018 Belgian GP after moving aside for Lando Norris in P1.
Alonso was the fastest McLaren car but could only manage 16th place.
It was even worse for Stoffel Vandoorne, who didn't even set a lap on the supersofts and finished both Friday sessions at the bottom of the timesheet.
Get Sky Sports F1 - the home of every race weekend LIVE in 2018.
