Emanuele Olivieri carried over his strong pace from Thursday afternoon’s second collective test session to top Friday morning’s 2026 FREC Spa-Francorchamps Free Practice session, becoming the only driver to dip below the 2m13s mark.
The R-ace GP driver spent much of the session towards the sharp end of the timesheets before delivering a late improvement right at the chequered flag. His benchmark lap of 2:12.906 proved enough to keep him at the top of the order.
Zhenrui Chi moved up to second in the closing stages for MP Motorsport, finishing 0.287s behind Olivieri, while teammate Alexander Abkhazava completed the top three.
Joules Roussel secured fourth for CL Motorsport, with championship leader Sebastian Wheldon rounding out the top five in the third MP Motorsport entry.
Just seven-tenths of a second covered the top 10 drivers, with Dion Gowda finishing sixth for Van Amersfoort Racing. Home favourite Thomas Strauven ended the session seventh for CL Motorsport on his second appearance in the series.
The two ART Grand Prix drivers, Alexandre Munoz and Mattéo Giaccardi, were eighth and tenth respectively, while Saqer Almaosherji slotted into ninth for G4 Racing.
Attention now shifts to Qualifying 1, which gets underway at 14:15 CEST and will be split into Groups A and B. The combined classification will set the grid for Race 1, while the top 12 drivers will be reversed to form the starting order for Race 2.
2026 FREC Spa-Francorchamps Free Practice results
- Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP) — 2:12.906
- Zhenrui Chi (MP Motorsport) — 2:13.193
- Alexander Abkhazava (MP Motorsport) — 2:13.277
- Jules Roussel (CL Motorsport) — 2:13.372
- Sebastian Wheldon (MP Motorsport) — 2:13.399
- Dion Gowda (Van Amersfoort Racing) — 2:13.417
- Thomas Strauven (CL Motorsport) — 2:13.457
- Alexandre Munoz (ART Grand Prix) — 2:13.462
- Saqer Al Maosherji (G4 Racing) — 2:13.605
- Matteo Giaccardi (ART Grand Prix) — 2:13.621
- Rashid Al Dhaheri (R-ace GP) — 2:13.703
- Kai Daryanani (Trident Motorsport) — 2:13.726
- Reno Francot (CL Motorsport) — 2:13.743
- Maximilian Popov (Trident Motorsport) — 2:13.757
- Reza Seewooruthun (Rodin Motorsport) — 2:13.811
- Andrea Dupé (Van Amersfoort Racing) — 2:13.818
- Salim Hanna (Prema Racing) — 2:13.832
- Alex Ninovic (Rodin Motorsport) — 2:13.845
- Kean Nakamura-Berta (Prema Racing) — 2:13.885
- Marcus Sæter (G4 Racing) — 2:13.932
- Gabriel Gomez (Rodin Motorsport) — 2:13.944
- Andrija Kostić (Trident Motorsport) — 2:13.954
- Francisco Macedo (Van Amersfoort Racing) — 2:14.101
- Tomass Štolcermanis (Prema Racing) — 2:14.191
- Yuki Sano (R-ace GP) — 2:14.243
- Miguel Costa (RPM) — 2:14.535
- Rahim Alibhai (G4 Racing) — 2:14.539
- Kabir Anurag (ART Grand Prix) — 2:14.788
- Giovanni Maschio (RPM) — 2:14.996
- Jan Przyrowski (RPM) — 2:16.026





