F1 Belgian Grand Prix LIVE: Qualifying updates and times at Spa

Two minutes to go and George Russell is down in P17, 0.174 secs off the pace!

Current bottom-five (16-20): Sargeant, Russell, Bottas, Zhou, Hulkenberg

Can Russell escape?! He’ll have one more pop at it…

A lot of cars now pitting for new intermediate tyres, with dry sections of the track opening up and no rain arriving yet!

Current bottom-five (16-20): Magnussen, Albon, Hulkenberg, Sargeant, Stroll

Fernando Alonso in trouble in P15, while Lando Norris is P12!

“There could be heavier rain in two minutes.”

9:00 to go and the leaderboard ever-changing at the moment!

Current bottom-five (16-20): Ricciardo, Tsunoda, Sargeant, Zhou, Stroll

Statement early time from Verstappen, who goes quickest by 1.4 seconds. Piastri 2nd, Leclerc 3rd.

More importantly, the bottom-five after the first flying laps (16-20): Zhou, Albon, Bottas, Stroll, Sargeant

Lando Norris needs an improvement, he’s P15!

11:00 to go. No sign of any rain yet, so the track continues to dry…

“It’s possible in these conditions we should go for it on the first timed lap, heavier rain in 8 minutes.”

Big early laps then for the drivers…

A big queue at the end of the pit-lane as we get Q1 underway – maybe a lot of them think they need to get a time on the board asap, with rain on the way!

A reminder: 18-minute session where we will lose the slowest five drivers from the rest of qualifying…

No DRS due to the rain and, incidentally, Aston Martin have fixed Stroll’s car after his accident in third practice.

It’s overcast and misty in the Ardennes forest – but it’s not raining currently! Rain chance during the session: 80%.

There is a lot of standing water though, so the 20 drivers are near-certain to start with intermediate tyres…

1. Max Verstappen – 265 points

2. Lando Norris – 189 points

3. Charles Leclerc – 162 points

4. Carlos Sainz – 154 points

5. Oscar Piastri – 149 points

6. Lewis Hamilton – 125 points

7. Sergio Perez – 124 points

8. George Russell – 116 points

9. Fernando Alonso – 45 points

10. Lance Stroll – 24 points

11. Nico Hulkenberg – 22 points

12. Yuki Tsunoda – 22 points

13. Daniel Ricciardo – 11 points

14. Oliver Bearman – 6 points

15. Pierre Gasly – 6 points

16. Kevin Magnussen – 5 points

17. Alex Albon – 4 points

18. Esteban Ocon – 3 points

19. Zhou Guanyu – 0 points

20. Logan Sargeant – 0 points

21. Valtteri Bottas – 0 points

This should be dramatic this afternoon!

It’s very wet on track but at the moment it’s not raining. Should be intermediate tyres, but will the track perhaps dry out enough over the hour-long session for slick tyres?

Lando Norris finished fastest in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix and said McLaren must consider making him their undisputed number one in order to deliver the British team’s first world title in 16 years.

Norris will be handed a golden opportunity to slash the 76-point championship deficit to Max Verstappen at Formula One’s concluding round before a four-week summer shutdown, with his rival to serve a 10-place grid sanction.

Verstappen’s Red Bull has been fitted with a fifth internal combustion engine, one more than the world champion is permitted, meaning the highest he can start will be 11th.