Spa GP2: Fabio Leimer fastest in soaking practice

With rain falling hard, conditions were treacherously slippery from the start, and standing water caused drivers to make continuous corrections through the steering wheel, even on the straights as they aquaplaned over rivers running across the track.

In the early going, the Lotus machines of James Calado and Esteban Gutierrez swapped fastest times, but points leader Luiz Razia grabbed the top spot with nine minutes remaining in his Arden-run car.

As the rain began to abate, Razia's title rival Davide Valsecchi set the fastest time, only for Razia to wrest it back seconds later.

Cecotto was next to lead the way, as the times began to tumble, followed by Racing Engineering's Leimer, who was 0.96 seconds faster than Ocean's Nigel Melker.

The improvements were halted by red flags, as Cecotto slammed into the tyre wall at Pouhon after running wide onto the kerb through the first left-hander and spinning backwards into the wall at the second element.

Cecotto ended the session third, but his Addax team will have a big job to repair his badly-damaged car in time for qualifying this afternoon.

Razia and Valsecchi, who are seven points apart at the top of the championship, were separated by a tenth of a second in fourth and fifth. Marcus Ericsson was sixth for iSport, ahead of Calado, as Gutierrez fell down the order to 10th.

In such foul weather, incidents were numerous: Jolyon Palmer spun at Les Combes early on, with Stefano Coletti rotating in sympathy seconds later.

Cecotto also spun at Les Combes a lap later, with Calado doing likewise.

Besides Cecotto, Daniel de Jong was the only other casualty of the session, depositing his Rapax car into the barriers at Les Combes.

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Fabio Leimer         Racing Engineering  2m22.580s
 2.  Nigel Melker         Ocean               2m23.540s  + 0.960s
 3.  Johnny Cecotto Jr    Addax               2m23.911s  + 1.331s
 4.  Luiz Razia           Arden               2m24.292s  + 1.712s
 5.  Davide Valsecchi     DAMS                2m24.394s  + 1.814s
 6.  Marcus Ericsson      iSport              2m24.665s  + 2.085s
 7.  James Calado         Lotus               2m25.145s  + 2.565s
 8.  Victor Guerin        Ocean               2m25.330s  + 2.750s
 9.  Stefano Coletti      Coloni              2m25.431s  + 2.851s
10.  Esteban Gutierrez    Lotus               2m25.540s  + 2.960s
11.  Felipe Nasr          DAMS                2m25.957s  + 3.377s
12.  Julian Leal          Trident             2m25.961s  + 3.381s
13.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham            2m25.969s  + 3.389s
14.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Caterham            2m26.226s  + 3.646s
15.  Jolyon Palmer        iSport              2m26.687s  + 4.107s
16.  Rio Haryanto         Carlin              2m26.841s  + 4.261s
17.  Stephane Richelmi    Trident             2m27.804s  + 5.224s
18.  Fabio Onidi          Coloni              2m27.945s  + 5.365s
19.  Simon Trummer        Arden               2m28.078s  + 5.498s
20.  Josef Kral           Addax               2m28.639s  + 6.059s
21.  Max Chilton          Carlin              2m28.751s  + 6.171s
22.  Ricardo Teixeira     Rapax               2m30.324s  + 7.744s
23.  Sergio Canamasas     Lazarus             2m30.461s  + 7.881s
24.  Nathanael Berthon    Racing Engineering  2m31.938s  + 9.358s
25.  Daniel de Jong       Rapax               2m33.864s  + 11.284s
26.  Rene Binder          Lazarus             2m34.328s  + 11.748s