Belgian GP session halted as massive crash rips huge chunk off car | F1 | Sport

Pierre Gasly’s enormous practice crash muddied the waters and left Formula 1’s top teams guessing heading into qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli ended Friday atop the timesheets with Lando Norris and Max Verstappen behind.

Lewis Hamilton was seven-tenths off the pace in fourth while Charles Leclerc was one-and-a-half seconds adrift way down in 11th. But Ferrari will believe they could have ended yesterday much closer to the benchmark had Gasly’s smash, which saw the rear wing ripped off his Alpine with 15 minutes to go, not ended everyone’s day prematurely.

George Russell, nearly 1.3 seconds off his team-mate’s pace, was another denied the chance to put in a late full-throttle run. Norris will hope the pace he found in his McLaren was genuine, though he won’t be on pole thanks to a 10-place grid drop.

Verstappen might hope to challenge after topping the timesheets in FP1. Though he still wasn’t happy with his Red Bull, fuming on the radio at one point: “These f*****g shifts, unbelievable man. Why are they so s**t? It’s unacceptable.”

More penalties have almost certainly decided the back row of tomorrow’s grid. Isack Hadjar’s new engine parts and the 30-places’ worth of penalties triggered guarantee Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate will start last. And, while Lance Stroll‘s own penalty is worth only 10 places, His Aston Martin is so slow it will likely make no difference to his qualifying result anyway.

Meanwhile, Norris fumed at paparazzi who “violated” his privacy by following him on his evening out with his rumoured new love interest. Last year’s world champion is rumoured to have split with Portuguese model and actress Magui Corceiro. And he has been romantically linked with American model and influencer Alix Earle since they were spotted in Cannes together in June.

They were spotted together again in London last week before Norris was filmed sprinting out of a members’ club and through a crowd of photographers. At Spa-Francorchamps, the McLaren star said he had been followed through London by one overzealous photographer and bemoaned his lack of privacy.

He said: “I’m getting a bit older and I want to be able to go out – that doesn’t mean go out and party – that just means have dinners and get out of the house. Last year, I would just game and feel like a loser, being in my own home. That’s not a bad thing. I would keep myself to myself and be disciplined.

“But now, instead of gaming until midnight, I will go out with my friends and have dinner until midnight. I have always enjoyed doing that, but now more of it is seen on social media, and there are more cameras. It’s about experiencing life outside the world of Formula One which I have the right to do.

“The next level is paparazzi waiting for you in places or tailing you. I drove to my friend’s house in London, and I knew a paparazzi was just following me the whole way. And following me through London for 40 minutes, just waiting to see who I was going to meet and where I was going.

“And that’s the first time where I started to feel a bit more violated in my life – that I can’t leave my hotel or house without someone trying to see every move I am doing. It doesn’t feel as though private life is private, it is just life now. That is part of being a Formula One driver, but there are boundaries, and I won’t accept people following me. That is just odd.”