I'm sure he was asleep already...

You can hear the relaxing tones of Allan McNish on BBC Radio 5 live from 12:55 BST.

The pit-lane light is green and the cars are out to line up on the grid.

This potentially bonkers race on an already bonkers weekend is getting closer.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Spa-Francorchamps

Image source, AFP

It has been a trying two years for the man many still regard as the best driver in the world, but Fernando Alonso has kept his sense of humour intact. He joked after qualifying about a “record” 60-place grid penalty, “which is one thing we are on top of”. Later in the evening he tweeted a picture of the grid sheet upside down, writing: “First row for Lewis and me.”

But behind the smiles, there is, of course, an inherent sadness about all this. The last two seasons of an illustrious career have been wasted - arguably three, including his final year at Ferrari. Which is bad for Alonso himself, but also for F1 and its fans - imagine what the last three years would have been like if Alonso had been at Mercedes with Hamilton, for example.

But Alonso is sustaining himself with the hope that McLaren and Honda will be competitive this year - and he sees optimistic signs, including from the upgraded engine Honda has introduced this weekend.

“It has been a good weekend in terms of performance,” Alonso said. “Jenson showed what the car can do with a very strong qualifying. With FP3, the only session I did, I was P10 and I was a little bit surprised knowing the nature of the circuit. So definitely a good step forward. I also read last year we were 3.7 seconds off pole position; now we are 1.3.

So the progress is just amazing because it is not the other cars didn't improve, they did improve as well. So that is very good news looking to next year.”

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso both have 60-place grid penalties.

Whereabouts would that put them in the world?

Image source, Getty Images

Max Verstappen will break a 55-year-old record today when he lines up second on the grid.

He will become the youngest driver to start a race on the front row, at the age of 18 years and 331 days.

The previous youngest was Ricardo Rodríguez, who qualified second in a guest drive for Ferrari at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix aged 19 years and 208 days.

Image source, Getty Images

"I’m just very pleased to be second here in front of my fans, it’s just a great motivation when you see them next to the track," said Max Verstappen after qualifying second yesterday.

The 18-year-old Dutchman with a Belgian mum was actually born in Belgium, about 100km from Spa - and a sea of orange has swept over the border from the Netherlands to swell the support for the Red Bull man.

Loud, proud and a bit bonkers that orange army. Great fun.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Spa-Francorchamps

Image source, Getty Images

Why is the qualifying gap between Mercedes and the rest smaller than expected? It’s down to the tyres.

The Mercedes has never had as big an advantage on the super-soft as it does on other tyres - the forces its greater speed create are too much for it and the tyre gets over-worked.

Here, that is exacerbated by the unexpected heat, the long-duration high-speed corners and the super-high pressures Pirelli is using to guard against the high-speed failures of last year.

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff said: “We seem to struggle more than other teams with overheating and blistering. It is odd that in particular surfaces and particular circuits the normal one-second gap to the soft to the super-soft doesn't materialise because the super-soft gives up. Our performance on the soft is what we deem normal but the super-soft gives up.”

Image source, .

At 7km (4.35 miles) Spa is the longest lap on the F1 calendar. That's why there's only 44 of them.

In fact it's more than twice the length of a lap of Monaco.

Where are the fun buts? The swish swash up and down and left-right-left of Eau Rougem (turns 2 to 4). Flat out for the brave.

And the chicane just before the home straight caught a few out on the first two days.

Image source, AFP

Strategy promises to be fascinating, with Max Verstappen starting his Red Bull from the front row with on the super-soft tyres and Nico Rosberg ahead of him and the two Ferraris and team-mate Daniel Ricciardo behind on the softs.

“With Max we have an advantage,” Rosberg said. “In the start he has an advantage but after a few laps I’ll have an advantage over him, which I hope to be able to use.”

Can Verstappen get past Rosberg and then hold him off for a while? The others don’t have to run the fragile super-softs at all - but could potentially choose to do so at the end for a speed boost, although this requires overtaking.

Then, it is two stops or three, and which tyres - do you use the mediums or go for a short stint on the super-softs? Three stops look faster than two but it’s an unusually unpredictable choice.

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Spa-Francorchamps

There has been a bit of confusion here ahead of the race as to whether Lewis Hamilton will start from the pits. Race stewards issued a notice saying he would because Mercedes had broken the gearbox seal on the car. But they got the penalty wrong - it should have been a five-place grid penalty, and it has now been changed to this.

He will start from the grid, in 21st place just ahead of Fernando Alonso, as was already the case. The gearbox seal was broken to Hamilton could take a new gearbox at the next event for free. A Mercedes spokesman made light of a the situation, saying: “We felt we should catch up with Fernando.”

Hamilton had already made it clear why he wanted to start from the grid.“I never like to start from the pit lane,” he said. “It means you have to wait for them to come past you. By the time I get round the corner, they will be halfway down the hill. It means I have to catch up. Of course there’s the possibility of a crash in Turn One and you avoid it, but there is also the possibility there’s not and I just give up eight seconds or whatever it is. I can’t afford to lose any time.”

BBC Radio 5 Live

Here's the view for Jack Nicholls and Allan McNish at Spa - commentary from 12:55 BST on BBC Radio 5 live and online.

Image source, BBC Sport

Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer at Spa-Francorchamps

Nico Rosberg had a special kind of pressure heading into this weekend - with Lewis Hamilton out of the picture because of engine penalties and a 19-point deficit in the championship, the German really had to deliver.

He has done the first part by taking pole, even if it was closer than anyone at Mercedes would have liked or expected. Now he has to do the second and win the race. On paper, it should be easy.

Mercedes’ margin over the rest in qualifying was much smaller than normal - but that was because they were having problems with the super-soft tyre, which Rosberg said they would not be using in the race.

On the softs, Rosberg was a more-normal one second clear of the field in the second part of qualifying. But there’s a but. “Red Bull have been fastest in the long-run pace for now this weekend, very clearly on Friday, so it will be a very tough race,” said Rosberg. "Hopefully we can improve our pace but that remains to be seen.”

Image source, Getty Images

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The stewards changed their minds.