F1 Styrian Grand Prix qualifying IN DOUBT due to heavy downpours

Saturday’s qualifying session for the Styrian Grand Prix is on course to be abandoned due to horrendous rain showers at the Red Bull Ring. 

Having had glorious sunshine during first and second practice on Friday, rain was heavy and unrelenting on Saturday. 

The hazardous conditions and limited track visibility led to the Formula Three race being cut short to ensure driver safety.

Heavy rain caused hazardous conditions as the Formula Three race had to be cut short

The race format’s twitter account was left asking where the cars were due to poor visibility

Track workers were left trying to clear excess water but the rain refused to let up all morning

With no let up in the conditions and more rain expected throughout Saturday, the decision was made around 11am to suspend the final practice session indefinitely. That could now be scrapped and qualifying could follow. 

The FIA have numerous options should the decision be made to call off Saturday’s qualifying session.

One of those is to host qualifying on Sunday morning, hours before the second race of the season is slated to start in Austria. 

Ferrari mechanics could only watch on and wait and should second practice standings be taken for the grid, four-time champion Sebastian Vettel would be starting way down in 16th

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly sports a face mask while he sits in the car waiting to start practice

‘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,’ FIA Race Director Michael Masi said in a Saturday morning statement.

‘There’s lots of options to put it simply. If a worst-case scenario was to come about, we’ve already had a look and qualifying could take place on Sunday morning. 

‘If we had a complete washout on Saturday, free practice three and qualifying didn’t take place and hypothetically 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.’ 

More to follow.  

So bad were the conditions in the F3 race, final practice for F1 drivers was then suspended

Lewis Hamilton would start sixth on the grid if second practice standings were used on Sunday