Report: Our Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps
We had one car reach Q2 and one narrowly missing out in Belgian GP qualifying
Published
18 JUL 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
It was another Saturday of fine margins in Formula 1 as Carlos Sainz qualified P15 for the Belgian GP while Alex Albon missed out on Q2 by just 0.007s, ending the day in P17.
The sensational Spa-Francorchamps saw some advancement in car confidence over our Saturday as both drivers found some better setup happiness.
For Carlos, that led to his Q2 best time of 1:46.777, while Alex’s 1:47.120 in Q1 was just 0.040s shy of the sister FW48 in that first part of quali.
F1’s longest circuit had just two laps for each drivers to set their times in each qualifying segment, and Carlos led Alex for the first Q1 attempts on fresh soft tyres.
Our qualifying session began with a 1:47.499 for the Spanish driver, while Albono set a lap two tenths slower at 1:47.701.
A weighbridge interruption delayed Alex a little as he headed back to track with half the grid separating him and Carlos, and both drivers were close in their Q1 times - 1:47.080 for Carlos, and 1:47.120 for Alex.
Ultimately Ollie Bearman’s marginally faster lap proved the difference that stopped Alex from joining Carlos in Q2 after a typically tight session.
Our No.55 ran used rubber for his first Q2 effort, setting a 1:47.403 for P15, but he went much faster when he switched to a new set of Pirellis for his second run.
A slightly wide moment exiting Stavelot had his front left tyre in the gravel, but Carlos estimated only a one-tenth time loss from that en route to his 1:46.777 effort.
With Alex finishing P16 and Carlos P18 in FP3, there were small signs of progress and encouragement from our Saturday running.
The team will now run through the data ahead of tomorrow’s grand prix to look for any refinements and strategic opportunities to fight up the order.
It is a P15 qualification for Carlos and P17 for Alex in Belgium
Carlos Sainz:
“It's been a tough weekend so far. We were dealing with an issue in all of the practice sessions, so it was a relief to find a fix for qualifying and get the car working as it should. Getting into Q2 was a positive, putting in some good laps and extracting everything from the car. Tomorrow will be about executing a clean race and avoiding any drama around us. We'll need some chaos to get within reach of points, so we'll look to maximise any opportunities that come our way.”
Alex Albon:
“It's frustrating not to make it into Q2 today after feeling like the car was in a good place all weekend. We made some setup changes between FP3 and qualifying, but they were just too aggressive, so it's unfortunate to fall short when it matters. We've been in good rhythm with the car all weekend and have been slowly chipping away at improvements, which had been paying off. We'll just have to see what we can do tomorrow, keeping in mind there are a few grid penalties, so we'll have a few cars out of place.”
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