Belgian GP: Leclerc quickest in FP3 as Hamilton crashes

Hamilton’s rare mistake triggered a red flag just after the halfway mark in Saturday’s one-hour session when, after setting a personal best first sector, he ploughed into the tyre barrier at the Fagnes chicane.

The Mercedes driver lost the rear of his car as he turned in on the outside kerb, then wrestled to catch the slide only to lose the rear again as he ran deeper into the run-off.

Hamilton avoided spinning but was unable to stop the car hitting the barrier heavily on the front left.

He apologised to his team over the radio and emerged from the car unharmed, with Mercedes facing plenty of work to get his car ready for qualifying.

Hamilton’s crash caused a substantial delay and the session only resumed with less than 15 minutes remaining.

Vettel led Leclerc by a tenth of a second at this point after the initial runs on soft tyres, but times were slower than in FP2 and remained that way despite late improvements.

Leclerc kicked that off by displacing Vettel with a 1m44.206s, which remained the benchmark despite being a tenth slower than his own best from Friday.  

Vettel was 0.451s back after failing to improve, fractionally ahead of the sole remaining Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.

Daniel Ricciardo was a surprise fourth-fastest for Renault, capitalising on Hamilton’s shunt and Max Verstappen suffering in traffic but also complaining of brake-balance problems in his Red Bull.

Verstappen was 1.1s slower than Leclerc in fifth, with Sergio Perez leapfrogging the absent Hamilton late on for sixth.

Alfa Romeo pair Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi followed Hamilton in eighth and ninth, while the demoted Pierre Gasly completed the top 10 for Toro Rosso.

Gasly’s replacement at Red Bull Alex Albon was slowest of the 20 runners after sacrificing qualifying simulations to focus on longer runs, as he is due to start from the back of the grid.

Session results

Cla	#	Driver		Chassis	Laps	Time	Gap
1	16	Charles Leclerc		Ferrari	9	1'44.206
2	5	Sebastian Vettel		Ferrari	12	1'44.657	0.451
3	77	Valtteri Bottas		Mercedes	11	1'44.703	0.497
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo		Renault	10	1'44.974	0.768
5	33	Max Verstappen		Red Bull	11	1'45.312	1.106
6	11	Sergio Perez		Racing Point	12	1'45.521	1.315
7	44	Lewis Hamilton		Mercedes	4	1'45.566	1.360
8	7	Kimi Raikkonen		Alfa Romeo	13	1'45.659	1.453
9	99	Antonio Giovinazzi		Alfa Romeo	13	1'45.688	1.482
10	10	Pierre Gasly		Toro Rosso	15	1'45.752	1.546
11	8	Romain Grosjean		Haas	15	1'45.806	1.60
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg		Renault	11	1'45.855	1.649
13	20	Kevin Magnussen		Haas	15	1'46.004	1.798
14	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.		McLaren	14	1'46.017	1.811
15	4	Lando Norris		McLaren	13	1'46.270	2.064
16	18	Lance Stroll		Racing Point	11	1'46.379	2.173
17	26	Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso	13	1'46.642	2.436
18	63	George Russell		Williams	14	1'47.858	3.652
19	88	Robert Kubica		Williams	14	1'48.350	4.144
20	23	Alex Albon		Red Bull	14	1'50.681	6.475
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