Severe weather warning for Brazilian GP amid cyclone threat

Mat Coch
A weather warning has been issued for the Sao Paulo region around the Brazilian GP.

A weather warning has been issued for the Sao Paulo region around the Brazilian GP.

A severe weather alert has been issued with a cyclone expected to hit the Sao Paulo region.

The Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia has issued an orange alert, warning of up to 60mm of rain per hour and wind reaching 100 km/h.

Severe weather and cyclone threaten Brazilian GP

Saturday’s track action in Brazil could be heavily impacted by the weather, with heavy rain and “intense winds” forecast.

The national meteorological service also warns of hail and the risk of power outages.

Formula 1 is scheduled to be on track twice on Saturday, beginning with the Sprint at 11am local time.

That’s followed by the hour-long qualifying session for Sunday’s race, scheduled for 3pm.

Those timings do afford some flexibility, with sunset in Sao Paulo coming just before 6:30pm.

However, the schedule could be reworked if necessary, with qualifying having previously been moved to Sunday morning at events interrupted by weather – as happened last year.

The FIA forecast: “Rainy band expected in the morning with a moderate to high chance of showers up to level 3/4 and possibly thundery until 10:00. Then, chnaces of showers up to level 2/3 remaining moderate. Strong notherwesterly wind backing southweatherly after weather front. Gusts up to 70 kph possible during the Sprint and 60 kpm during Q.”

The storm hit Londrina, in Northern Paraná, on Friday night.

An animation of satellite images between Friday night and midnight on Saturday showed the storm heading towards São Paulo.

Sunday is currently forecast to be clear.

The main risk is therefore to the Sprint, which brings with it a potential eight points for the winner.

Slated for 24 laps around the Interlagos circuit, full points would be awarded if 12 or more are completed, else no points will be awarded.

Under the regulations, there is some flexibility in terms of timings, however with defined windows between the Sprint and Qualifying, elements such as sunset will play a factor.

There is a three-hour window from the end of the Sprint to the start of Qualifying, which could theoretically see the latter pushed back to 5pm, necessitating the Sprint to start no later than 1pm – assuming qualifying isn’t simply rescheduled to Sunday morning, as would be essentially should there be any further delay if the Sprint was moved.

Alternatively, regulations do cover instances where qualifying cannot be held.

“In the exceptional circumstance that the qualifying session does not take place at a Competition, and with acceptance of the Stewards that the session cannot take place, the grid for the race will be defined based upon the Drivers’ Championship classification,” F1’s sporting regulations outline.

Rain has often been a factor at Interlagos, leading to Giancarlo Fisichella claiming his first win in a shortened event in 2003. In that event, a host of drivers aquaplaned at Curva dol Sol (Turn 3) before a heavy crash for Mark Webber littered the circuit with debris from his Jaguar, before Fernando Alonso arrived on the scene in his Renault.

There was rain in the 2016 edition too, which witnessed a stirring charge from Max Verstappen to third, doing so again in last year’s event to win.

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