FP3 Highlights | 2026 Belgian Grand Prix

Final practice in Spa had a dramatic conclusion as Lewis Hamilton found the barriers at turn 13 After a steering snap took him into the gravel Oh, was it on an upshift there as well? and it's just I did maybe a slight kick of torque there for Hamilton when he's already right on the edge on the Second lap on those tires that is a potentially massive blow there for Hamilton The Ferrari got a lot of work to do to get that patched up. That is a race against time now for Ferrari Up until that moment it had been a reasonable session for the seven-time champ Who'd made a promising start to his Spa weekend finishing P2 in first practice His earlier laps prior to the crash were good enough for P5 Teammate Charles Leclerc finished P6 after a bit of a scruffy session the Monagas frequently fighting his Ferrari on his qualifying simulation runs Having struggled for performance in FP1 Kimi Antonelli showed a marked improvement in second practice Bagging the fastest lap of the day and he was again the quickest man on track in final practice He's best lap clocked at 1 minute 45 990 No such luck for Mercedes teammate George Russell who languished in P8 at the flag yesterday unable to unlock his Silver Arrows full potential He complained again of a lack of power on the straights this time out finishing fourth Lando Norris finished Friday in P2 But wasn't getting carried away with that suggesting McLaren were probably the fourth fastest car He went a little wide exiting turn 14 in this session flirting with the gravel But he was again second quickest a new electronics power unit fitted to his MCL 40 Means he'll face a 10 place grid drop on Sunday Anyway, no matter where he finishes in qualifying Oscar Piastri's Friday running was curtailed by a hydraulic issue Unable then to challenge the top times P7 this time out Oscar would work to do ahead of calling Max Verstappen top the timing tables in the first hour of Friday practice and despite falling back a little later on felt satisfied that he'd Maximize the Red Bull package in the session. The four-time champ went very wide at turn nine spraying some stones But thankfully staying mostly away from the track. He was P3 at the flag Isaac Hadjar has taken new parts this weekend enough to drop him to the back of the grid on Sunday He's putting you shiny new rb22 through its paces scraping the floor over the curbs at the exit of turn seven later He got himself stranded in a tricky place. No power. Oh my god. I stopped I stopped There's clearly a just a power unit issue where he's just run out of reps And then you're gonna just stall the car when you can't keep it going So at least hatch are they've been able to push it back and see if there is some simple fix Once back out on track, he felt blocked by the Aston Martin of Lance stroll p10 for the Frenchman today Audi have had a very decent if relatively quiet the session their drivers occupying p8 and p9 with Nico Hülkenberg ahead of teammate Gabriel Portoletto this time around Racing Bulls are a little lopsided this weekend with Arvid Lindblad giving upgrades to test out which seemed to have borne fruit The British driver was faster than Liam Lawson yesterday and was again quicker in fp3 Although he took a wide line through turn nine at one point touching the loose stuff. He finished p11 one better than Lawson Despite Pierre Gasly's crash in fp2 Alpine were happy with their lap times up until that point and were planning to change the Frenchman's power Unit for Saturday anyway But the mechanics still had a bigger job than they would have liked to get his a 5 to 6 ready for final practice He managed p15 this time out Frank Oconopinto nabbed the best of the rest title in fp2 p7 and crucially for the team ahead of both racing Bulls Not so today Although he was three places higher than his French teammate The Williams team feel they've fallen back a touch in recent races chief trackside engineer Paul Williams says they've been leapfrogged by Haas Alex Alwin was their top driver today p16 two places below the best Haas performer Oliver Behrman Carlos Sainz was p18 He found traffic at the end of the Kemmel straight in the shape of Valtteri Bottas The boot was on the other foot for the Finns Cadillac teammate Sergio Perez Encountered cars when going through Blanchimont at speed the Mexican driver not happy for these fellow participants So it finished Antonelli top from Norris Verstappen Russell Hamilton Leclerc and Piastri then came the Audi duo of Hülkenberg and Portoletto Hajar completes the top 10 p11 for Lindblad and he was ahead of Lawson Colopinto Behrman Gasly Albon Bottas Sainz Ocon Perez Alonso and Stroll