What happened in final Belgian GP F1 practice

A wet final Formula 1 practice of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend was headed by reigning champion Max Verstappen, with Lance Stroll's crash the main event of the 60-minute session.

With the track already wet to begin practice and rain picking up in the early minutes, Stroll was caught out coming through Eau Rouge, trying to correct a massive snap and heading into the run-off at speed.

His Aston Martin spun there and eventually met the outside barrier with its left front, snapping the suspension but seemingly leaving the rest of the AMR24 unscathed as Stroll parked it at the start of the Kemmel straight.

That crash, coming just past the 11-minute mark, brought out the red flag.

There had been a surprisingly healthy amount of running before that - despite intensifying rain and several drivers beyond Stroll struggling to keep the car on their cars on the track.

But when the red flags were cleared a handful of minutes later, no teams showed any interest in heading out and risking extra repair bills and qualifying-compromising damage. The red flags came back out with just over 25 minutes to go, this time for track conditions, and the session only resumed so practice starts could be completed at the very end.

Verstappen had been his usually assertive self in that early running, heading out first of anyone and pumping in a time that left him top of the timesheets by nearly a second and a half. The conditions leave the Dutchman in a particularly strong position to minimise the impact of his 10-place grid penalty for a new internal combustion engine for Sunday's grid.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Alpine's Pierre Gasly completed the top three.

Only three drivers hadn't set a laptime by the time Stroll brought out the red flag, those three being George Russell (Mercedes), Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari).

Magnussen and Sainz didn't run at all bar that late resumption for practice starts (with Sainz briefly going off at Rivage on his lap to the pits while Magnussen did set a nominal time on wets), while Russell - whose Mercedes team has reverted to an older-spec floor for the rest of the weekend after an inauspicious debut for the new version on Friday - had pitted at the end of his sole flying lap.