F1 Belgian GP live commentary and updates - Qualifying

Everyone except Norris, Verstappen and Hadjar now out, mostly on used softs. Let's have a look at the ones burning up another set of softs: pretty much everyone behind Lewis Hamilton (currently P10).

For a while it looked like the frontrunners were very much in 'park' mode but now Lindblad, Antonelli, Russell, Piastri, Lawson and Hamilton head back out for second runs on the softs they've already used.

So Antonelli only P5 after those first runs. Russell's 1m46.420s is just over a tenth off the other Mercedes, P7 for now.

Norris now goes P1 with a 1m45.865s, 0.065s up on Verstappen. Hadjar into P3 with 1m46.062s. That's just over a tenth away from his Red Bull teammate, well within the team's tolerance for the second driver.

Sainz pops in a 1m47.499s. Our GPS suggests he benefited from a tow from his teammate there - but as the frontrunners and front-midfielders pile in, what looked like a respectable position evaporates underneath him and Carlos slides out of the top 10.

Verstappen goes purple in sector two and three to clock a 1m45.930s. Fascinatingly, Antonelli falls short - 1m46.304s is 0.374 off Max.

Lindblad then posts his VCARB into the gap: 1m46.191s!

Antonelli on a push lap now and purple in sector one.

Verstappen the first of the regular frontrunners to go for a push lap. Didn't look like the front end bit properly into the La Source hairpin.

1m49.307s for Perez, with Bottas 0.704s in arrears after their first flying laps.

All cars now out on track including Lewis Hamilton, whose car had to be repaired after smiting the barrier in FP3.

Track is getting busier now as Antonelli, Verstappen, Russell, Lindblad, Lawson, Colapinto, Bearman, Gasly, Albon, Alonso and Sainz join the action.

For the engineers this weekend has been a head-scratcher. Mercedes head of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin, said yesterday that the track had proved less grippy than expected. So in FP1 Mercedes was running downforce levels that were actually too low. Probably several other teams were too.

Previously, Spa didn't always punish teams for running too little downforce. Indeed, to an extent it could be an advantage in the first and third sectors.

But under the current regulations, a car that doesn't corner tidily is costing itself electrical deployment, because it has to re-accelerate. Since the amount of energy the battery can store really isn't enough, the effect at a track such as Spa is that cars lose speed on the straights as the power drops away.

Among the frontrunners, Lando Norris and Isack Hadjar are facing grid penalties for taking new engine components this weekend.

Energy management has been the hot topic all weekend, accounting for intriguing differences between teammates as well as the usual variances in car performance.

Spa doesn't present many conventional opportunities to regenerate electrical power, so time lost through chassis imbalances or small driver errors tend to compound over the lap as precious electrical power has to be 'spent' to regain lost speed.

COMETH THE HOUR...

Time to get real at Spa-Francorchamps. It's been an interesting weekend so far - let's catch you up on matters arising...