Piastri’s pace was founded on his pace in sector two, which features most of the corners, where he was 0.298secs faster than Norris, who was second fastest through there.

Usually, pace in the middle sector of Spa comes with a compromise – it means running more downforce, which means less speed on the straights.

However, Piastri lost only 0.095secs to Verstappen in the first sector, where the only ‘corner’ is the opening hairpin, La Source, as Eau Rouge is taken flat out. And was actually 0.125secs faster than Verstappen, his closest pursuer, in the final sector.

It’s very unusual for a car to show this performance profile at Spa and it seems it is a result of a new rear, more-efficient wing introduced by McLaren at this race, which the team says produces less drag for the same amount of downforce.

Piastri goes into the sprint race at 11:00 BST on Saturday with an eight-point championship lead over Norris.

But he will be wary of the threat from Verstappen on the first lap with the long run through the Eau Rouge swerves and up the hill to Les Combes.

Verstappen, though, diminished the importance of that, saying: “When you are almost 0.5secs off, I don’t think going faster or slower on the straight is going to matter a lot. We just have to do our own race and see what we can do.”

He added: “Being P2 between them is already a good result for us, and I do think we maximised that. I enjoyed it out there. The lap itself was fine. It was good.

“Of course, the gap is very big, but it’s been big already from FP1. So there’s not a big surprise. We just have to focus on ourselves and work on the balance of the car and try to go faster.”