The championship leader looked fast throughout the hour-long practice session — the only one of the weekend due to it being a sprint round — setting the early pace on the hard tyres before clocking his best time of 1:42.022 on his final lap on softs.

His time was 0.404s faster than Max Verstappen, while his teammate Lando Norris finished the session in third, 0.504s behind the Aussie.

With Pirelli opting to skip a compound this weekend — providing teams with the C1, C3 and C4 — most teams were tentative about switching to the softer rubber, initially running the hardest C1 compound to use up their limited allocation in the shortened sprint weekend.

This led to a frantic close to the session, with fastest times changing throughout the order right up until the chequered flag.

By the end of the session, all teams had run the softest C4 compound — except Mercedes and Racing Bulls, who set their best laps on the medium C3s.

George Russell was impressive on the mediums, finishing fourth, just seven hundredths behind Norris.

His teammate Kimi Antonelli also showed strong pace on the same compound, finishing sixth and splitting the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc (fifth) and Lewis Hamilton (seventh).

Russell had a hairy moment during the session with the Alpine of Franco Colapinto, briefly taking to the grass to avoid the slow-moving Argentinian on the approach to Turn 8. The incident was noted by the stewards.

It added to another messy session for Colapinto, who also nearly went off completely at Pouhon after suffering a big snap while on the softs. He finished the session 19th.

Isack Hadjar was another to have a scary moment, doing well to hang onto his Racing Bulls car through Eau Rouge. He ultimately finished the session 10th.

The rookie was also spotted appearing to take a quick nap in his car while waiting in the garage — one of the more unusual and humorous scenes of the session.

¡Hadjar, al lío! 😅

🔴 #EnDIRECTO🔴 ➡ https://t.co/vPcrFpATJh#BelgianGP🇧🇪 #F1. pic.twitter.com/nyImYVNJv9

— Motorsport.com España (@es_Motorsport) July 25, 2025

Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten in eighth and ninth respectively, with Stroll doing well to recover from an early seat issue to become the first driver to set a time on softs.

Carlos Sainz was another to suffer issues early in the session, told to return to the pits on his out lap after experiencing acceleration problems with his Williams.

His team worked on a power unit fuel system issue for the opening half hour before he returned to the track to finish the session 11th, one spot ahead of teammate Alex Albon.

With the only practice session done for the weekend, attention now turns to sprint qualifying, which will take place at 4:30 p.m. local time (12:30 a.m. AEST).