Sunday’s rainswept Belgian Grand Prix will go down in history as Formula One’s shortest ever race, and also as a leading contender for most farcical.

Just calling it a race takes a mighty stretch of the imagination — a delay of more than three hours with crowds enduring cold and rain to see a few processional laps behind the safety car in heavy spray and no overtaking.

Officially, the action lasted all of three minutes and 27 seconds with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen the winner — a result effectively decided in Saturday’s qualifying.

Half points were then handed out for only the sixth time ever.

“If you want to get a reward for qualifying you should get points for qualifying,” said Aston Martin’s four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel.

“If there were actually no race laps, no competition, why should points be given and any result be given, because there was basically no race,” asked Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who finished 10th.

“I didn’t race, so I didn’t deserve the half a point I got, so I don’t know why I got it.”

The rules say at least two laps are necessary for a race to become official and half points awarded but Sunday’s solution came across as a cynical box-ticking exercise to some and plain wrong to others.

The champagne was sprayed but, apart from George Russell appearing on the podium for the first time for Williams with second place, there was little to celebrate.