General
Qualifying could revert to FP2 times if rain continues in Austria
- GPblog.com
As heavy rain pours down at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, the schedule for the Formula 1 Styrian Grand Prix has been thrown into doubt with FP3 delayed indefinitely. This puts qualifying under the spotlight and race director Michael Masi says F1 may have to look for an alternative to qualifying.
The Styrian Grand Prix is only two sessions old but with heavy rain around the circuit it looks unlikely that we will have any racing before qualifying at the best. If qualifying wasn't to take place Formula 1 would need an alternative for the second time in 12 months following the Japanese Grand Prix in 2019.
Search for alternatives
“The latest forecast is not looking great, there’s an 80% chance of rain in FP3 at the moment and likelihood of very heavy showers throughout,” said FIA Race Director Michael Masi on the Formula 1 website.
“If we had a complete washout on Saturday, free practice three and qualifying didn’t take place and hypthetically qualifying couldn’t happen on Sunday morning because of weather, we would revert back to free practice two times.
“Or there’s the third iteration, which is free practice three can happen but we can’t have qualifying in the afternoon or qualifying Sunday morning and the grid would highly likely be set on the free practice three times.”