After a summer of second-guessing, we're soon about to find out who will be able to start of the second half of the season from the front of the grid. Just five minutes to go now before Q1 gets going.
One thing you can say is that fans massed in orange are visible again, having taken off their rain macs. The sun is just starting to peer through the clouds in places.
The timing screens helpfully indicate that the track has been declared wet. No kidding. That also means DRS is disabled, so carrying more downforce will help in the corners but pay a bigger penalty on the pit straight.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes it will be unfair to judge Lawson based on his qualifying performance today. But if there's one thing the AlphaTauri rookie has in hand, it's that he has proven to be very versatile - as Horner also acknowledged. Lawson won on his DTM debut at Monza in 2021 on his first outing in GT3 machinery, and also triumphed on his Super Formula debut at Fuji earlier this year - neither are anything to sniff at.
All told, its not the kind of environment Liam Lawson would have hoped to be making his F1 debut in. The Kiwi is replacing Daniel Ricciardo after he broke a bone in his hand during FP2 yesterday, and spun to bring out the third and final red flag in FP3 earlier.
The lack of running for the F2 cars will have the knock-on effect of meaning there is more surface water on the road than there otherwise would have been. FP3 ended with running on the intermediates, but it does look like it will be full wets for qualifying, as the downpour prior to the F2 race has only slightly let up.
As we all know, Zandvoort is a track where there's not much room for error and several drivers have been caught out this weekend - even when the track was dry. Final practice earlier was blighted by three red flags while several drivers visited the Turn 1 run-off, so qualifying promises plenty of intrigue and could become a matter of surviving.
The weather remains on the dreary side, with grey skies over a slippery road. The Formula 2 sprint race was started in terrible conditions, then abandoned after a scary first lap crash involving the two Campos cars - with no points rewarded as a result.
Even with these conditions it probably isn't too hard to predict the favourite for pole. But the rest could deliver a really interesting story if the track conditions remain as they are for qualifying in just over two hours.
As the drivers head back to the pits to digest the data and their lunches before qualifying, there's plenty for us to mull over. Three red flags, Verstappen on top by decent chunk from Russell and then it is anyone's guess for the rest.
Time for the drivers' one and only practice start in the wet, which if the race begins in similar conditions as predicted, it means this will be vital learning before Sunday.
Russell holds on to second despite a late flurry of improvements, which see Perez end the session third from Alonso, Hamilton, Albon and Piastri. Norris, who led the session for long spells, ended up 10th.
Lawson dropped the car on power out of Turn 13, sending him around heading towards the final corner, and he kissed the inside barrier with his front wing. No major damage done as he is able to spin the car around and make it to the pits.
Norris replies to his team-mate's time to go top again with a 1m23.677s - 1.2s quicker than Piastri. Verstappen is back out on track so what can he do in response?
Tsunoda is already asking for inter tyres again, showing the very fine working window of these wet tyres. It is only really useful for heavy rain conditions before a red flag is called for due to too much standing water.
These red flags will be frustrating Lawson most of all given he needs the track time. He leads the lap tally on 11, but has also seen half of the session fly by.
Due to the tight track, Zandvoort needs cranes to extract cars that have stopped, much like you see at Monaco. So that means we're all getting a good look at the car floors. So far this weekend we've seen Haas (twice), McLaren, AlphaTauri and now Alfa Romeo.
