Three weeks after its victory in round two at Imola, the team was back in action at the legendary Belgian circuit, just 120km from its base in Cologne, Germany, in the last event before the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

The #7 GR010 HYBRID of Imola winners Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries led the charge on day one, recording the fourth fastest lap on a day when race preparation was the main priority. World Champions Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, in their #8 GR010 HYBRID, were seventh.

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing aims to repeat its exceptional performance in Imola and earn an eighth consecutive victory in Belgium, while Sébastien is already the most successful WEC driver at Spa with five wins and can extend that record on Saturday. Fighting for victory will be a tough challenge based on strong performances from the fastest of the 19-strong Hypercar field on the opening day, but the team is working as one to maximise the potential of the GR010 HYBRID.

Track action got underway late on a sunny Spa morning, with air temperatures at 17°C when the team kicked off its programme of mechanical set-up adjustments and tyre evaluation during the 90-minute first practice.

The spectacular 7.004km Spa circuit features long high-speed sections in the first and third sectors which put a priority on top speed, but the sweeping curves of sector two require more downforce and grip. Engineers and drivers worked to evaluate the most appropriate set-up for Saturday’s race.

An interruption-free first practice provided a solid foundation for the rest of the day. Sébastien set the fastest lap for the #8 GR010 HYBRID during his first stint, putting his car 11th overall. The #7 GR010 HYBRID was 16th after Mike’s best lap, which also came on a clear track in the opening minutes.

The team used the four hours between sessions to analyse data from first practice and continue fine-tuning the car ready for second practice, which began at 5.30pm local time.

Another 90 minutes in fine weather provided the perfect conditions to assess the degradation of the soft and medium Michelin tyres, which is expected to be particularly challenging in the race, alongside further adjustments to car balance. The fastest laps of the session again came in the opening minutes, from Kamui and Brendon respectively as lap times improved compared to earlier in the day.

The team has one more practice session, on Friday morning, to further optimise the GR010 HYBRIDs before qualifying, which begins at 3.30pm CEST. The green flags wave for the race at 1pm on Saturday.

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7):

“It’s nice to be back in Spa. There were no surprises on day one in terms of our position relative to the others. But the tyre degradation was worse than I expected, so we need to balance the car to be consistent through the long stints. We need a little bit more performance because we looked to be a little bit off compared to some of our competitors, but we are working hard to find some solutions for the rest of the weekend.”

Mike Conway (Driver, car #7):

“It’s been a reasonable day and both sessions were clean, without any real interruptions. We ran through our programme and looked at ways to improve the car set-up. There is still some performance to find, as usual at this stage in the weekend. We also have to think about the tyres here because the degradation is quite high, so we need to get on top of that.”

Nyck de Vries (Driver, car #7):

“I think it was a decent first day here at Spa. It’s hard to read where we are compared to our competitors, but I felt like we made some good improvements on the car from first practice to second practice. I am curious to see and explore where we are with the car tomorrow. I feel like we are on the right track but there is still quite a bit of work to do ahead of the race.”

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8):

“It’s always a pleasure to be back at Spa and we had good weather which is not always the case here. Now we have a lot of data, and we will look into that overnight and try to improve for tomorrow. It looks like it will be a challenge as usual, but we did lots of laps, testing the tyres and the degradation. There are lots of things we can improve but it is still a positive day.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8):

“It has been a pretty smooth day. We haven’t been 100% happy with the balance so we are trying to find a compromise. There is big tyre degradation here and that’s going to be a topic for everyone because we all need to make these tyres last. Clearly, we are not the fastest today but it was a clean day with no issues. We will keep working on the race set-up and hopefully there’s more to come.”

Ryo Hirakawa (Driver, car #8):

“We spent the two sessions trying to maximise the car performance, mainly focusing on our race set-up. So far, we see that tyre management will be the key point because of the degradation. There are still many things we can do to improve the balance, so we are going to work on fine-tuning the car. We are aiming for a car which is strong in the race, with a consistent balance even on older tyres. It will be challenging but we are motivated as always.”