Report: Positives and negatives at Spa

A promising start to the weekend fades by Sunday

Published

19 JUL 2026

Est. reading time

2 min

Alex Albon had a more hopeful weekend at the Belgium Grand Prix, with the FW48 showing signs of more competitive pace earlier on Friday. While the performance didn't translate into Sunday’s race, Spa still provided an entertaining afternoon.

After qualifying in P17, the Thai driver was moved up to P15 for the race start due to grid drops from other competitors. Lap 1 was clean from Alex with him moving up into P12, however, contact between George Russell and Lewis Hamilton brought out the safety car and subsequently neutralised the race.

As the race resumed, Alex remained amongst the midfield battles, eventually getting overtaken by Nico Hulkenberg and Isack Hadjar on the Kemmel Straight 12 laps in.

By lap 18, he had climbed to P10 as drivers ahead began to make their first pit stops.

Two Virtual Safety Car appearances for debris on the track allowed Alex to hold onto his positioning for longer.

Albono finally pitted on Lap 19 and switched onto hard compound tyres. He rejoined the race in P15 just ahead of Valtteri Bottas, before reaching P14 as clothes completed their pit stops.

Eventually by lap 27, the Haas of Oliver Bearman had battled past, leaving Alex in P15 where he ended up for the remainder of the race. Lap 31 saw him questioning vibrations on the car, however, in the end this didn't affect his race position.

While the weekend ultimately did not deliver the results Alex and the team had hoped for, the positive feedback from the car at the start of the weekend can only motivate them for the next race.

“It was a frustrating day today. We had a good start, and you begin to think you can keep up with the midfield, but our pace just dropped away.”

“We’ve had a super clean weekend and had stronger pace up until qualifying, where we made some changes that impacted our race pace today, leaving us with quite a slow car.”

“We know other teams are progressing much faster than us and our Baku upgrade likely won't close up this gap, but we’ll do what we can to find more performance.”