Kimi Antonelli set the pace in Free Practice 3 for the Belgian Grand Prix, and Lewis Hamilton ended the session in the barriers after a late crash that sent Ferrari into a rush to get his car ready for qualifying later on Saturday.
The timing mattered because the final practice hour was the last clean run before qualifying, and Antonelli’s lap of 1m 45.990s left him eight tenths clear of Hamilton before the Ferrari driver’s mistake changed the mood in the garage. Lando Norris was second, a little over one-tenth of a second behind Antonelli, while Max Verstappen climbed to P2 and was within two tenths of the top time.
Hamilton had already shown strong pace before the accident. He first went quickest with a 1m 47.436s lap on the soft tyre, then improved to 1m 46.789s before Antonelli and George Russell had even been on track. By the time Antonelli delivered the benchmark lap, Russell could only manage P4 and said he lacked straight-line speed, a gap that helped explain why the Mercedes pair did not immediately match the Ferrari driver’s early efforts.
Antonelli’s lap also came with a hint of untidiness that made the number more impressive. He aborted his second flying lap after running wide at La Source and said, “I didn’t get the gear in,” then failed to improve after a big slide through the Les Combes chicane. Even so, he was still fastest, which tells the story of a driver who kept the session’s best time despite leaving a little margin on the table.
Hamilton’s crash brought the sharper question. He was classified P5 when he lost the rear through the left-hander of Turn 13, glanced the barrier and brought his Ferrari to a stop on his final lap. The source does not put a figure on the damage, but the scramble that followed says enough: Ferrari now had a damaged car and only a short window before qualifying. That is the pressure point of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, because a car repaired in time can still matter; one that is not changes the whole afternoon.
There was one more complication in the session. Isack Hadjar came to a stop in the pit lane exit and later nearly collided with the rear of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin into Turn 8, with a grid penalty already looming for the weekend because of new power unit components. But the story of Free Practice 3 stayed with Antonelli at the front and Hamilton forcing Ferrari into repair work, and qualifying later on Saturday will show whether the team can turn that scramble into a clean start.
