Raikkonen edges Ricciardo in 3rd Belgian GP practice

Nico Rosberg who led the opening practice session was sixth in P2 followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean’s Haas.

That allowed him to outpace Australian team-mate Daniel Ricciardo by two-tenths as the Renault-powered outfit delivered a strong one-two showing.

He dismissed suggestions that he could realise a dream by taking pole at his “home” circuit.

“In the first corner I think Seb didn’t see a vehicle inside me and expected me to run in tightly, but I couldn’t”, Raikkonen said.

“I never dream”, he said.

Like Hamilton, he will start near the back of the grid, after the Woking-based team opted to fit his vehicle with a fresh power-unit.

Stewards handed Gutierrez a five-place grid penalty after reviewing the incident.

German Nico Huelkenberg was third-fastest for Force India ahead of his compatriot Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari, Mexican Sergio Perez in the second Force India and championship contender Nico Rosberg of Mercedes.

“If I would not have braked we would have had a massive accident and I’m sure it will happen sooner or later if this doesn’t change”.

“Max wanted the super softs to start the race, and I wanted the softs, so it was easy”, Ricciardo revealed, “The team talked about maybe doing two different strategies, and then they asked us what we wanted to do, and we both wanted to do different strategies, so it’s a good scenario for us. There is some blistering and some things happening with the tyres, which you can’t quite predict so, for me, the soft was a little bit of a safer option”.

“The whole weekend has been very smooth … and in qualifying the vehicle was working really well”, said Verstappen, who had ended Friday’s opening day of practice top of the timesheets. Elsewhere, Jenson Button was 13th for McLaren with British rookie Jolyon Palmer 18th.

But Mercedes’ uncharacteristically low-key display on Friday had more to do with them focusing on race simulations, especially with Briton Hamilton set to start near the back of the grid due to engine-related penalties, than a sudden surge of Red Bull form.

But he is set to start near the back of the grid after Mercedes fitted two fresh power units to his auto ahead of each of Friday’s sessions.