Saturday morning’s final practice session has been cancelled due to torrential rain and standing water at the Red Bull Ring for this weekend’s Styrian Grand Prix.
In what was expected to be a very wet day in the Styrian hills today, the session was initially postponed to stop teams taking to the track in case the times in this final practice session would’ve been used to set the starting grid if qualifying doesn’t go ahead.
The plan is still for the hour of qualifying to go ahead this afternoon if conditions improve, but a backup plan of running the session on Sunday morning is in place just in case it doesn’t go ahead today.
Yesterday saw some frantic action in free practice two, with the potential for the times of that session being used to set the grid for Sunday’s race if qualifying doesn’t go ahead at all this weekend. Max Verstappen set the fastest time yesterday, with last week’s winner Valtteri Bottas in second place and the two BWT Racing Point F1 Team’s of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll.
Conversely, Lewis Hamilton looked to struggle for ultimate pace on Friday as the six-time work champion didn’t appear to be able to match his Finnish team mate once again. The Scuderia Ferrari’s of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel also struggled even after bringing forward updates that were scheduled to be seen in Hungary next week, and were in ninth and sixteenth respectively, with the latter continuing to come to grips with his setup after last week’s woes.
Qualifying is due to start at 14:00 BST.
