Belgian GP FP3: Verstappen tops rain-shortened session

The weather forecast showed rain for Saturday, but when the session started, Verstappen and other drivers went out quickly to do some running in the wet on Intermediate tyres.

That was crucial as qualifying is also expected to be in wet conditions and since more rain was expected as FP3 progressed.

However, around ten minutes came in heavily, and continued longer than expected which meant running was no longer possible.

The first interruption came when Lance Stroll crashed at after aquaplaning at Raidillon bringing out the first Red Flag, and while the stricken Aston Martin was removed with enough time remaining, none of the teams ventured out on track.

With 15 minutes remaining, the rain still intense, race control red-flagged the session once again and sent the medical car out to explore the conditions.

The session was restarted with a couple of minutes remaining to allow drivers to do some wet practice starts, but the initial order set by the early running remained the same.

Verstappen was fastest from Oscar Piastri in second and Pierre Gasly in third, while Lando Norris was fourth ahead of Esteban Ocon in fifth.

Charles Leclerc was sixth with Lance Stroll in seventh as Valtteri Bottas was eighth and Lewis Hamilton in ninth with Sergio Perez tenth.

There is nothing much to read into the times as they depended on when each driver set his lap, so we have to wait for qualifying to find out more.

Friday showed that McLaren and Verstappen are in a class of their own, and were trading blows as the latter topped FP1 while Norris took over for the former in FP2.

Red Bull are working on giving their triple Formula 1 Champion a decent race car so he can overcome his engine penalty come Sunday.

Mercedes struggled on Friday, the W15 bouncing quite a bit, while Ferrari was hard to read, but those two teams are part of the McLaren/Verstappen chasing pack.

While Friday was dry despite the clouds threatening to open up, rain is forecasted for Saturday, with qualifying expected to be a wet affair which will give an interesting on how the weekend progresses.

Rain will mean qualifying will be open to many scenarios, while the grip that has been ramping up with all the running since Friday will be washed away, which will challenge the teams on tyres and strategy going into the race.

Off track, the developments at Alpine have dominated the news with Bruno Famin relinquishing his role as boss of the F1 team to take care of matters at Viry-Châtillon with all the changes going down over there.

Let's see what FP3 delivers.

As expected rain arrived and the session started in wet conditions with track temperatures at 21 degrees Celsius with air temperature at 18 degrees.

Verstappen and Piastri led the way out of the pits on Intermediate tyres, as VCARB soon informed Ricciardo that a "big chunk" of rain is coming in five to ten minutes.

The track was quite wet evident from the amount of spray coming out from the back of the #1 RB2o not to mention both Verstappen and Piastri going wide.

Daniel Ricciardo soon reported" "I feel like I'm losing hydraulics, the steering is heavy. Something feels weird." The team said they would check but then reported they found nothing wrong.

The Australian repeated his complaint and was asked to box the car.

Less than ten minute into the session and the intensity of the rain increases and the visibility worsened with several drivers having off moments, Yuki Tsunoda and Norris two examples.

But 12 minutes into the session, the Red Flag came out as Stroll lost control of his Aston Martin climbing out of Eau Rouge and went off track at Raidillon destroying his front left suspension. Session over for the Canadian.

The session was resumed with 40 minutes remaining but none of the drivers went back out, as the intensity of the rain meant any running was pointless. Better wait till conditions improve.

McLaren made good use of the down time to change the damaged floor on Norris' car as the Briton must have destroyed the floor when going off earlier.

McLaren benefitted from the heavy rain that continued to interrupt the running.

With less than 25 minutes remaining race control put out the Red Flag once again as they deemed conditions to risky, with a lot of standing water in the track. The Medical Car was sent out to check the situation on the track.

The session was resumed with two minutes on the clock and Carlos Sainz was the first out on full wet tyres with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg behind him on the same tyres. Sauber, Alpine, and VCARB also joined.

Sainz soon was off track at Rivage and ended in the gravel, but managed to return to the track.

Verstappen posted a lap time of 2:01.565 to go fastest ahead of Piastri, 1.433s behind in second while Gasly was third 1.610s off the pace.

Norris was fourth fastest with a 2:03.372 and 1.878s ahead of Ocon who was fifth in the Alpine, 0.783s ahead of Leclerc in sixth.

Stroll's time before crashing, a 2:06.037, was good for seventh and ahead of Bottas in eight, 4.927s away from the top.

Hamilton was ninth, over five seconds off Verstappen's time and 0.352s ahead of Perez in tenth.