Raikkonen edges Ricciardo in 3rd Belgian GP practice

Hamilton is not the only driver with engine penalties.

As Formula One roars back into life following its summer break, Hamilton has largely been a spectator after his Mercedes team chose to take a penalty – one which has been lingering over the world champion following a series of engine failures in the opening phase of the season – here in Belgium.

The team also focused Lewis Hamilton primarily on long runs, aimed at perfecting his race set-up, in the knowledge he is set for a big grid penalty on Sunday following an engine change.

Hamilton heads into the weekend gunning to become only the third driver ever to take 50 career wins.

Rosberg, who finished only seventh in final practice on Saturday morning, said: “We had a hard weekend up to now and especially this morning as we were seriously off the pace on one lap”. But I think in general, everybody was struggling to make the tyres last and sliding quite a lot.

But with only 22 competitors, Hamilton will start no lower than the 21st place in which he qualified.

Fernando Alonso was already due to join Hamilton on the back row after serving an engine penalty, and his miserable weekend continued in qualifying after he failed to set a time when his McLaren came to a stop on track just moments after leaving the pit-lane.

As part of the Pirelli test agreement, the F1 teams have to try to simulate the increase in downforce coming for next year without actually having cars that comply with the rule changes.

“People watching it don’t care, it’s far too technical, far too complicated”. If you look at the gaps between the cars, they are very close, so tomorrow it should be a good race. “I miss that and I hope one day they go back and simplify it”. “I know what needs to be done to keep him behind”.

Jenson Button will start in ninth while British rookie Jolyon Palmer qualified 14th albeit almost half-a-second slower and two places behind his Renault team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

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Raikkonen, a four-time victor at Spa-Francorchamps, hooked up a clean lap to move ahead of Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, who ended up 0.215s shy of the Ferrari driver.