Points leader Kimi Antonelli kept his strong momentum going by posting the quickest lap for Mercedes during Saturday's final practice session at the Belgian Grand Prix, which ended early after a crash.

The young Italian driver, who also led Friday's session, delivered a rapid time of 1 minute 45.990 seconds to beat McLaren's defending champion Lando Norris by 0.139 seconds. Four-time champion Max Verstappen placed third for Red Bull.

Norris will start Sunday's race from a lower position due to a 10-place grid penalty.

George Russell ended up fourth, three-tenths behind his Mercedes teammate after finding it hard to match Antonelli's speed all session. Lewis Hamilton took fifth for Ferrari even though he crashed hard near the end of the session.

The seven-time champion spun at the Fagnes chicane and hit the barriers with the right rear of his car, similar to Pierre Gasly's incident for Alpine the day before.

Hamilton escaped injury, yet his Ferrari suffered major damage, giving the team just two hours to fix the car ahead of qualifying later that day.

His teammate Charles Leclerc finished sixth, followed by Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren, Audi's Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, plus Isack Hadjar in the second Red Bull. Hadjar also carries a grid penalty.

The session started quietly under mild, dry and sunny skies, with Valtteri Bottas the first to set a time for Cadillac. Hadjar clocked 1:48.231 on medium tires before the Racing Bulls drivers improved quickly once the top teams joined in.

Twelve minutes in, Hamilton moved ahead with 1:47.436, ahead of Piastri and Hadjar. Arvid Lindblad briefly led before Hamilton improved to 1:46.789. Antonelli then took the top spot on his opening flying lap with 1:45.990, over a second quicker than teammate Russell.

Verstappen sat third at 1:46.837 while Leclerc was fourth, 1.132 seconds off Antonelli. Only the top three drivers had gone under 1:47 at that point on this demanding circuit.

Teams then focused on tire wear using used softs, though Norris ran 13 laps on mediums for race data.

With 12 minutes left Verstappen fitted fresh softs and moved to second with help from traffic. Norris then improved to second on softs with 1:46.129, just 0.139 seconds behind Antonelli before Hamilton's crash ended the session.