Belgium – Free practice 3: Räikkönen ahead, Verstappen at a standstill

For this second day of testing at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the weather is once again ideal as the track is already at 30°C and the air at 29°C, with not a cloud in sight to disturb the great and beautiful sunshine that has prevailed since the beginning of the weekend.

The drivers are not necessarily in a hurry to take the track for this last hour of testing before qualifying. While Esteban Gutierrez is the first to set a time (1:49:933), he is quickly beaten by his teammate, Romain Grosjean (1:49:676). But during the Mexican driver’s slowdown lap, he was nearly hit by Pascal Wehrlein’s Manor, which was coming at full speed out of Eau Rouge. The German was then forced to go onto the grass and execute a superb save to avoid a collision. This provoked his fury and he demanded a penalty for the upcoming qualifications. The incident will be reviewed by the stewards at the end of the session.

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Meanwhile, Nico Rosberg takes the lead, at 1:48.880, while Lewis Hamilton is focused exclusively on preparing for his race and is therefore using medium tires. Mercedes has also announced that they have installed a third MGU-H and turbo on the Briton’s car to maximize the number of available parts for the remainder of the season. He will thus incur a 55-place grid penalty for this weekend. The only question is whether he will decide to start from the pits or the back of the grid.

The Mercedes driver does not seem to be the only one struggling with his mechanics since Max Verstappen’s mechanics were also very busy with his car, even lifting the engine cover due to a sensor issue on his gearbox.

At mid-session, the two Ferrari drivers took control of the session, with Kimi Räikkönen (1:48:406, his best time of the weekend) ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg. Valtteri Bottas, Nico Hülkenberg, Sergio Perez, Romain Grosjean, Kevin Magnussen, Felipe Massa, and Esteban Gutierrez complete the top 10. However, Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, and Marcus Ericsson have yet to set a time.

A few minutes later, a new incident was narrowly avoided when Kevin Magnussen blocked Sebastian Vettel, who didn’t hesitate to express his displeasure to his engineer. The stewards will therefore have a second investigation to conduct before the qualifications.

Daniel Ricciardo switches to super softs and takes the lead in the standings, two-tenths ahead of Kimi Räikkönen’s benchmark while both Force India cars pick up the pace and move up to 6th and 7th positions, before the Williams cars bracket Nico Rosberg at the edge of the podium.

In the last few minutes, the drivers switch to a set of super softs to carry out the final simulations before this afternoon’s qualifying, leading to numerous improvements. Kimi Räikkönen breaks the 1:48 mark, clocking in at 1:47:974. Lewis Hamilton also completes a short stint on super softs but has to settle for the 5th fastest time, despite being in the lead at the end of the first sector.

The final top 10 is therefore Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Vettel, Bottas, Hamilton, Hülkenberg, Rosberg, Massa, Perez, and Grosjean, which promises a very eventful qualifying session.

PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF FP3)

Kimi was the King Of Spa again this morning ⏱ 👑#BelgianGP #FP3 🇧🇪 pic.twitter.com/XTgO8AlpKt

— Formula 1 (@F1) 27 août 2016

From our special correspondent at Spa-Francorchamps