REPORT: Fine margins in soggy Spa Qualifying

It wouldn’t be a Belgian Grand Prix weekend without some rain, and that’s exactly what we were treated to across Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps.

The day started with a disrupted FP3, with Alex and Logan only able to record one flying lap in the final hour of practice which featured two red flag periods.

Conditions worsened after FP3, leading to the postponement of the F2 Sprint, but thankfully improved as we approached Qualifying.

Intermediates were the tyres of choice throughout the Qualifying hour, and our duo were in the queue at the end of the pit lane for the start of Q1.

Alex and Logan found time on their second flying lap, returning to the garage in P17 and P19 respectively, putting all on the last pushes.

With one flying lap to go, we were P9 and P16 and Alex set a better lap on his last attempts to make it through in P14.

Unfortunately for Logan, he suffered a lockup at T1 and then found Max Verstappen in front of him for the run down to Eau Rouge and up through Raidillon, meaning he couldn't improve, getting knocked out in P19.

Alex was front of the queue for Q2 with a slight increase in the rain forecast midway through the second stage.

Boxing after his first push, he found himself in P3 waiting in the garage to see if he’d need to go out once again.

The rain would ease in the closing stages and the track ramped back up, forcing Alex out of the garage.

He improved on his final run, but his 1:54.473 was just 0.003s shy of a Q3 berth, settling for P11 which will become P10 on race day.

"It was a lot of fun out there today with the conditions making it a bit tricky but a joy to drive," Alex shared.

"Trying to get the rears to survive or to go flat through Eau Rouge; every lap was pushing the limits.

"Whilst we were three milliseconds off Q3, I’m still happy with how the car felt and due to penalties, we’ll be starting from P10 anyway.

"We’ve made a lot of changes on our car from FP3 to Qualifying, however because of the rain, we aren’t 100% sure how these changes have gone, but we’ll be looking to have a good day tomorrow and fight for points."

Logan continued by sharing: "It’s always tricky at Spa and it’s never easy in these kinds of conditions when the track is drying.

"A lot of it comes down to that last lap and we didn’t get one in as we didn’t get ourselves in the right position.

"So what could have been, nobody knows, but I’m not sure we quite had the pace today. We’ll go again tomorrow."

Sven Smeets, Sporting Director, completed our reaction by commenting: "The weather dictated Qualifying today.

"The track remained too wet for Softs, however it was very difficult to decide when to come in and take a new set of Intermediates.

"With Logan, we missed the right track position at the end of Q1 and had to abandon our last pushlap which we needed to get into Q2.

"Alex got into Q2 with a good lap and missed out on Q3 by a few milliseconds, but we’re happy with P11 after such a tricky Qualifying.

"Tomorrow it will be dry so the race will be a completely different story to today, but we're ready to fight for points."