Alpine’s Pierre Gasly triggered a red flag with a heavy crash in Friday practice at the Belgian Grand Prix as Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli laid down the gauntlet for the weekend with the fastest time.
Gasly lost it on the exit of the Fagnes medium-speed chicane in the middle sector and hit the barrier, which tore off his right rear wheel.
The incident brought the race-simulation runs in the final part of the session to an early end and will mean a long night for Gasly’s team, per BBC Sport.
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 reverse the decline of his fortunes in which team-mate George Russell has cut his championship lead from 68 points to 25 over the past three races.
The 19-year-old Italian was 0.190 seconds quicker than McLaren’s Lando Norris in second place – and a huge 1.285secs quicker than Russell. ““Rears felt too cold, sliding a lot,” Russell said over the team radio during the session. “But not 1.2 seconds cold.
