Belgian GP final practice and qualifying
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By: Geoff Creighton
Summary
Status: Stopped
Here's the report from qualifying! Can Leclerc break his duck tomorrow? Join us for the race to find out! 
Hamilton: "P3 was a terrible session for me, and it's painful because I know how much it takes to build the parts and how much it takes to put the car together. Ferrari have done a great job today, Charles did an exceptional job and I hope we can bring the fight tomorrow."
Vettel: "At the end it's good we secured the first row, but to fight for pole I was in the queue. But we have good pace in the car so hopefully we'll fight over the 44 lap race. Temperatures should drop overnight, but I think it's the same for everyone."
Leclerc: "It felt good! We were struggling a little bit more during the race pace and we need to work on that, but looking at today I'm sure we will be strong."
Belter of a lap from Leclerc, three-quarters of a second clear of second. Vettel was unhappy with traffic, so that might have been a contributing factor there...
Q3 results: 1 Leclerc, 2 Vettel, 3 Hamilton, 4 Bottas, 5 Verstappen, 6 Ricciardo, 7 Hulkenberg, 8 Raikkonen, 9 Perez, 10 Magnussen.
Bottas takes fourth, but was just over a tenth away from getting onto the front row - if only he'd had a better first sector.
Hamilton comes up just short on his second attempt, and Vettel jumps him - albeit just by 0.015s! The German was 0.748s slower than his team-mate.
But it's a superb second sector from Leclerc - just a couple of tenths slower than the Mercedes pair, and four tenths quicker than Vettel!
Leclerc improves in the first sector, but Vettel is quicker still. Hamilton is six tenths down, Bottas drops nine tenths.
"Get on with it now, Max. Get on with it." comes the terse radio message from the Dutchman's engineer.
Replays of Hamilton nearly ploughing into the back of Bottas, although he rather steered into it. Bottas then also had to check up behind Hulkenberg on the run to the chicane.
Current order: 1 Leclerc, 2 Hamilton, +0.638s, 3 Vettel, +0.832s, 4 Bottas, +0.934s, 5 Verstappen, +1.595s, 6 Ricciardo, +1.613s, 7 Perez, +2.258s, 8 Raikkonen, +2.334s, 9 Magnussen, +3.067s, 10 Hulkenberg, no time.
Vettel's lap has not gone quite right - he's dropped some four tenths in the second sector, and ends up only third, slotting in between Hamilton and Bottas. Work to do for the German.
But Leclerc answers with a 1m42.644s! That's more than six tenths quicker than the championship leader.
Hamilton posts a 1m43.282s, going three tenths quicker than Bottas and almost a second quicker than Verstappen.
Hamilton is very displeased, and although his middle sector is looking rather good, Vettel's first sector is rather good.
After all that traffic foolishness, the first sectors from Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen are terrible - all around seven tenths or more slower than Leclerc through that section.
It's a 1m44.978s from Raikkonen, with Magnussen seven tenths slower but Ricciardo seven tenths quicker courtesy of a 1m44.257s.
What on earth is going on there? Bottas and Hamilton getting way too close for comfort at Stavelot, as Bottas slows him right down! "This is affecting the outlap" says Hamilton. They're crawling around at a near halt!
Verstappen is first of the top cars to emerge from the pits, followed by Bottas, Hamilton, Leclerc and, finally, Vettel.
Grosjean and Hamilton had a very close encounter on the exit of Stavelot at the end of the session. Like, really close.
Advancing to Q3: 1 Leclerc, 2 Vettel, 3 Hamilton, 4 Bottas, 5 Ricciardo, 6 Verstappen, 7 Raikkonen, 8 Hulkenberg, 9 Perez, 10 Magnussen.
A slide for Bottas on his lap ruined sector one for him. But the Finn set a purple second sector anyway, refusing to give up on the lap.
Ferrari has flexed its muscles late on there with Leclerc and Vettel on fresh softs, as both improved - the Monegasque firing in a 1m42.938s.
Ricciardo up to fifth, Grosjean and Norris come up just short of Magnussen. Perez doesn't improve but hangs on to a Q3 spot.
Hulkenberg moves up into the top 10, Magnussen loses out in the final sector but picks up 10th place.
Raikkonen's effort is just 0.008s slower than Verstappen's, and just 0.764s slower than Leclerc's best lap of the weekend so far.
Current order: 1 Leclerc, 2 Vettel, 3 Hamilton, 4 Bottas, 5 Verstappen, 6 Raikkonen, 7 Ricciardo, 8 Perez, 9 Stroll, 10 Magnussen, 11 Hulkenberg, 12 Grosjean, 13 Norris, 14 Albon.
Leclerc and Vettel both go quicker than the Mercedes driver, but they're not a whole lot quicker. The Monegasque driver is the new session leader, with a 1m43.376s that leaves him 0.130s clear of Vettel and 0.216s clear of Hamilton.
Albon was quicker through the first two sectors, but backed out at the end of the lap, presumably so as to avoid locking in the used soft as his starting compound for tomorrow.
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