Verstappen fastest in wet training

Mostly cloudy. Rain. Air +18C, highway +21…22C

Saturday morning at Spa it started raining, the same weather is expected in qualifying, so the drivers were not in the pits racing on intermediate tyres. Only Magnussen and Sainz stayed in the pits.

Ricciardo complained of steering problems and after a few laps he pulled into the pits and handed the car over to the mechanics.

The riders were cautious, several small deviations had no consequences for the cars, but the rain became heavier, more and more water came and already in the 11th minute the session was stopped with red flags due to an accident.

Lance Stroll lost control at Raidillon, the car spun and was thrown into the barrier. The Canadian was sent to a medical centre – the dangerous overload sensor tripped and the car was not evacuated too quickly. The doctors released Lance without comment.

The stopwatch kept counting down the practice time, but it was only after twenty minutes that the green light came on at the exit of the pit lane. This time, no one was in a hurry to get on the track. In the stands, the spectators were bored and wet, but in Spa, the public is used to that.

A few minutes later the red flags appeared again: management believed there was too much water on the highway.

Two minutes before the end of the session, the riders were allowed to leave. In his only lap, Sainz made a mistake under braking, drove into a gravel trap without consequences for the car and did not show the time.

The protocol was led by Max Verstappen, who completed a lap in 2:01.565.

The third part of free races