Antonelli tops Belgium FP3 after Hamilton crash

Kimi Antonelli topped the final practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton crashed out of the session just after the checkered flag.

Hamilton was two sectors of the way through a final push lap on a set of soft tires when he lost control of his Ferrari exiting Les Fagnes, skating over the gravel and smacking his right-rear corner into the tire barrier.

It was an incident similar to the one that ended Pierre Gasly’s FP2 session, albeit less dramatic, with the car suffering a shattered rear-right suspension and broken rear wing but otherwise keeping itself largely intact.

The Briton confirmed he was okay as he parked his car by the side of the road, condemning his team to a frantic rebuild in the less-than 150-minute break before qualifying.

The order of the session had been fixed before Hamilton’s smash, with Antonelli topping the order despite failing to set a representative time with his final set of soft tires.

The Italian teenager had led the way throughout the hour, setting the pace on his opening set of softs before the more competitive final qualifying preparation runs commenced in the last 20 minutes.

Antonelli, however, couldn’t improve on his original time of 1m45.990s, with a snap through Les Combes contributing to the 0.265s deficit to his own benchmark. The lap wouldn’t have counted even if he had improved, however, having exceeded track limits exiting the final corner.

His failure to pick up on the improving track conditions left him vulnerable to his rivals, though none of them could touch his original time — in particular in the first sector, where he retained the fastest split.

Lando Norris, as he had done on Friday evening, was the Italian’s closest challenger, lapping 0.139s off the pace. He again set the quickest time in the middle sector, though he was down considerably on the leader through the flat-out first and third splits.

Max Verstappen closed his half-second Friday deficit to just 0.148s even after repeat complaints about gear shift problems. The Dutchman was fastest in the final split, splitting the three sectors between the three quickest teams.

George Russell started the session with a gaping 1s deficit to his teammate and again complained of a lack of straight-line speed, having struggled with recharge and deployment on Friday. He shrunk that gap to a more respectable 0.367s with his second softs run, with the biggest part of that deficit in the final sector.

Hamilton retained fifth despite his crash, lapping 0.392s off the pace. Teammate Charles Leclerc followed him in sixth but was an additional 0.368s adrift, though the Monegasque abandoned his first two attempts at a lap on his final set of softs, the latter due to traffic.

Oscar Piastri was seventh for McLaren, 0.795s off the pace, just ahead of Audi teammate Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto in eighth and ninth, 0.934s and 1.059s off the pace respectively.

Isack Hadjar completed the top 10 for Red Bull Racing, 1.106s off the pace, after a troubled session that didn’t feature a final softs run and also saw him stopped at pit exit around halfway through the session. The Frenchman had to be pushed back into the lane by marshals to allow his mechanics to retrieve him.

Racing Bulls teammates Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson headed Franco Colapinto, Oliver Bearman and Pierre Gasly.

Alex Albon was 2s off the pace in 16th ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz, who will see the stewards after the session for almost rear-ending Verstappen after the checkered flag as the Dutchman slowed for double yellow flags warning of Hamilton’s crash.

Esteban Ocon was 19th ahead of Sergio Perez, who was 3s off the pace.

Fernando Alonso was 4.165s off the pace for Aston Martin, 0.476s ahead of teammate Lance Stroll at the bottom of the classification.

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