On a wet track Sainz, the son of two-time World Rally Champion of the same name, picked his moment perfectly on intermediate tyres to record a 1m49.434s. He then immediately complained of “more aquaplaning” as the rain intensified once more.

Story of the session

With a soaked track, not much happened for the first part of the session apart from installation laps.

Max Verstappen was the first to show after 53 minutes, recording a 1m51.741s on wet tyres, with Toro Rosso teammate Sainz exactly 2s slower on his first lap.

Verstappen worked down to a 1m51.640s, with Sainz doing likewise to a 1m52.201s. Then Sainz improved to 1m51.369s, before switching to inters.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel went P2 on wets, before Nico Rosberg hit the top spot on 1m51.077s – also using full wets.

There was then a brief window in the weather to allow cars to chance their luck on intermediate tyres. Braveheart Verstappen was first, recording a 1m50.940s, with Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat then laying down an impressive P1 time of 1m49.938s on his very first lap on inters.

But Sainz timed his run to perfection, beating him to the top spot with 1m49.434s, before complaining of “more aquaplaning” as the rain fell harder.

Kvyat stayed second, over half a second in arrears, ahead of Rosberg, Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen fell to sixth, ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, Felipe Massa (Williams), Marcus Ericsson (Sauber) and Valtteri Bottas (Williams).

Only 12 cars recorded times, despite a healthy turnout from a huge crowd the other eight cars couldn't be bothered to complete a flying timed lap.

Plenty of scary moments

Bottas, on inters, suffered a big moment exiting Turn 2 as he splashed through a river, while Verstappen overshot at Spoon and rejoined. Massa also did well to stay out of the wall after a huge moment.

Vettel had a massive twitch on the high-speed kink approaching Spoon, while Nasr just stayed out of the gravel in the Spoon corner itself, and Sauber teammate Ericsson followed suit near the end of the session and explored the 103R run-off too.

Raikkonen had a big moment at Turn 1 on wets at the end, but everyone kept their cars out of the barriers.

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso STR10	1:49.434		10
2	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull RB11	1:49.938	+0.504	7
3	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes F1 W06	1:50.077	+0.643	14
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari SF15-T	1:50.519	+1.085	12
5	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes F1 W06	1:50.722	+1.288	6
6	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso STR10	1:50.940	+1.506	10
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari SF15-T	1:51.212	+1.778	15
8	Felipe Massa	Williams FW37	1:52.288	+2.854	12
9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber C34	1:53.820	+4.386	12
10	Valtteri Bottas	Williams FW37	1:53.964	+4.530	14
11	Felipe Nasr	Sauber C34	1:54.013	+4.579	9
12	Jenson Button	McLaren MP4-30	1:55.678	+6.244	6
13	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull RB11			1
14	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India VJM08			4
15	Sergio Perez	Force India VJM08			3
16	Fernando Alonso	McLaren MP4-30			5
17	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus E23			1
18	Jolyon Palmer	Lotus E23			1
19	Will Stevens	Marussia MR03B			3
20	Alexander Rossi	Marussia MR03B			4