Hamilton is quickest

LEWIS HAMILTON’S recent resurgence continued on his favourite track as the reigning world champion topped practice ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix tomorrow.

Thankfully, after the first session was disrupted by rain that fell steadily for an hour, the black clouds lifted for a dry run in the afternoon.

With virtually every driver running for around 30 laps, the lead changed hands several times during the 90 minutes before Hamilton emerged in front.

After his victory in Hungary and second on Sunday in Valencia at the European Grand Prix, the 24-year-old is poised for a podium finish for a third successive race.

Hamilton topped the timesheets in his McLaren with a lap of one minute 47.201 seconds around the renowned 4.5-mile Spa circuit. The unpredictability of the track resulted in the top-six places being filled by drivers from six different teams.

Toyota’s Timo Glock was a surprising second quickest given his team’s woes of late, just 0.016secs behind Hamilton, with Kimi Raikkonen third in his Ferrari, a mere 0.084secs adrift.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber, Renault rookie Romain Grosjean and Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella completed the top six, followed by the second Toyota of Jarno Trulli.

Sebastian Vettel, who sat out the first session to preserve engines after blowing two Renault powerplants in Valencia, finished 10th, completing 25 laps.

Of possible concern to Brawn GP is their duo of championship leader Jenson Button and team-mate Rubens Barrichello were 17th and 18th, both just under a second behind Hamilton.

Brawn had expressed confidence earlier this week they had cracked the tyre issues that had affected their running in cooler climes.

But if the evidence yesterday is anything to go by, it would appear that is far from the case, unless the duo were sandbagging.

Luca Badoer propped up the standings, finishing two seconds behind Hamilton in his Ferrari.

The 38-year-old, knowing he must show significant improvement on his calamitous display in Valencia, even stopped the session early on.