Final practice for the 2024 Belgian GP got underway in very wet conditions around Spa-Francorchamps, as the rain hit the circuit just minutes before the session started.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen was the first car out on track, unsurprisingly sporting a set of the green-walled intermediate tyres – and immediately found conditions difficult, running wide down at Bruxelles, with Oscar Piastri also running wide two corners later at Pouhon, but no damage done for either driver.
Daniel Ricciardo was told by his VCARB team that a “big chunk” of rain would arrive at the circuit 10 minutes into the session. Shortly after, the Australian reported problems with the hydraulics in his car, with the steering wheel feeling “heavy”. He had issues at the end of FP2 as well, which the team could identify – however they couldn’t find any issues this time around.
Heavier rain started to fall just seven minutes into the session, with Oscar Piastri being told over the radio the heavier rain would last 10 minutes.
Verstappen managed to set a 2:01.565 in what seemed to be the better of the early conditions out on track, as he jumped over 1.4s ahead of Piastri’s best effort in P2.
After reporting back with something “still weird” in his car, Ricciardo was told to return to the pits 10 minutes into the session. He had ran wde at Malmedy earlier on as well.
McLaren’s Lando Norris – who said on Friday he wasn’t fully comfortable with his MCL38 in practice – ran wide at Malmedy, but managed to get out of the gravel trap with no major issues.
Lance Stroll, however, caused the first red flag of the weekend, after crashing his Aston Martin at the exit of Eau Rouge/Raidillon, after bottoming out in the compression and aquaplaning during the worsening conditions.
The Canadian walked away seemingly uninjured from the high-speed accident, but his AMR24 took a beating in the left hand side, with a broken front left suspension and front wing, at least.
Whilst lap times don’t matter much in these ever changing conditions in a practice session, getting laps done is important. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz missed the first runs before the red flag, and sat down in 20th as the session restarted.
The session resumed with 40 minutes remaining on the clock, but no drivers went out for another 15 minutes, as the rain continued to intensify.
The red flag was deployed with 25 minutes of the session remaining, with the Medical Car going out on track to assess the conditions and the standing water to see if it’s safe for cars to run.
The second red flag allowed Stroll’s car to be brought back to the pits and his Aston Martin mechanics to start repair work, just under three hours from the start of qualifying.
As the heavy rain continued to hit the circuit, conditions didn’t improve and the red flag stayed until 2 minutes of the session remaining, and that encouraged Carlos Sainz to wait at the end of the pit lane, along with several drivers as the session resumed, as the drivers and teams tried to get one final lap in to assess conditions and car set-up ahead of the all-important qualifying session.
Most headed out on the full wet tyres, and first car out, Sainz was also the first to hit trouble, running wide at Rivage and into the gravel briefly, but managed to keep going.
Although many went out on track, no driver was able to start a timed lap, as the clock ran to zero before they got to the line, making this final run more about finding out how the conditions are, ahead of a probably wet qualifying session in two-and-a-half hours, and doing some practice starts on the grid in the case of the Haas drivers.
