The rain forecast during this afternoon’s qualifying session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve could be heavy enough to prevent drivers from being able to run, says Carlos Sainz Jnr.
Second practice at the Montreal circuit yesterday ended shortly before a heavy downpour at the circuit. A thunderstorm also hit the track on Thursday evening.More rain is expected during Saturday, following by an improvement in the conditions on Sunday. Sainz suspects today’s qualifying session will be disrupted if rain falls in the volumes expected.
“Qualifying could be wet, the race is likely to be dry,” said the Ferrari driver. “So I think we could be on for a bit of an interesting day tomorrow.”
Speaking as rain fell at the track after second practice, Sainz said “if this amount of rain comes, then it’s very tricky that we will run. But if it rains as normal, then it will be a good fun to drive around here in the wet.”
Zhou Guanyu, who is racing at the Canadian circuit for the first time in his career, is expecting a challenging session if the rain does arrive.
“Obviously having zero experience, we don’t know how it will be, but definitely it will be quite a challenge because here is basically no space for error. It’s like kind of a street circuit really, you get close to the wall. It will be fun.”
In Monaco FIA F1 race director Niels Wittich took the unexpected decision to delay the start of the race after rain began to fall due to the lack of running drivers had experienced in wet conditions up to that point. The start of the race was further delayed when it became apparent a heavier band of rain was about to hit the track.
F1 has a substantial window of daylight running to complete today’s qualifying session. Qualifying is due to begin at 4pm local time and sunset is due at 8:46pm.
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Jere (@jerejj)
18th June 2022, 13:35
The worst-case scenario would be a postponement to tomorrow & thus another race day qualifying.
Hopefully, not, but possible if rain hits & is unideally severe for on-track action throughout today’s remaining daylight time.
BTW, crediting Wittich for the Monaco delays is slightly wrong as he was merely a deputy RD that weekend (the same as this weekend & in Spain), so Freitas is primarily responsible for how things got handled at the time.
Jonathan Parkin
18th June 2022, 14:34
Could we not hold qualifying earlier and record it for broadcasters so they can show it at the original time
Just a thought
Matt Loh
18th June 2022, 14:53
In the age of instant messaging and social media, where happenings are instantaneously posted and commented upon online, this is just not possible. The thrill of a LIVE session would be gone.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
18th June 2022, 15:21
The latest weather radar says that the rain should stop around 3:40 pm local time and move away to the atlantic, but it also should keep raining constantly until that time. So there likely won’t be much racing action in FP3.
They should be O.K. for qualyfing though.
t1redmonkey (@t1redmonkey)
18th June 2022, 15:23
Forecasts I’ve seen are saying it is supposed to stop raining around the start of quali so probably just be qualifying on a ‘drying out’ track I think.
MichaelN
18th June 2022, 15:49
When Sainz says ‘rains like normal’, hopefully he doesn’t mean ‘the race director suspends the session until intermediates are used for the very first run only’.
A proper rain qualifying would be nice. It’d be nice to see some oddball results on the grid.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th June 2022, 19:56
Absolutely, I’m so tired of this rain-is-bad attitude they’ve adopted.
Broccoliface
18th June 2022, 16:36
He’s right as technically these days any moisture could be enough for the director and stewards to panic and hide
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
18th June 2022, 16:53
This isn’t Spa or a particularly dangerous track. Can we not just enjoy the wet? The wet that is as yet still hypothetical.
How can we ha e arguments about the best drivers of all time if today’s drivers are not allowed to perform in the wet?
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
18th June 2022, 17:54
@eurobrun
Since the last big tyre regulations change in 2017 we didn’t have a proper wet race. That can’t be a coincidence!
The wider cars and tyres F1 introduced after 2016 seem to have ruined wet weather racing. The cars are creating more spray, so visibility got worse and the wider tyres tend to aquaplane more easily/with less standing water than before 2017.
Montreal migh not be as dangerous as Spa (thank God Norris walked away from his crash safely), but if the drivers are just aquaplaning off the circuit, racing or setting lap times is just pointless.
The Pirelli full wet just isn’t doing the job it needs to be doing under heavier rain. The intermediate is doing relatively fine, possibly because it’s a softer compound and doesn’t have to disperse so much water.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
18th June 2022, 18:29
Franz Tost says drivers should go home if its too wet or they have too much spray 🙄
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th June 2022, 19:59
Agree with both of your comments, I miss proper wet races, however there’s been a fairly good one in germany 2019, but such a shame they didn’t race at spa last year, could’ve been something like brazil 2016, with rain from start to end.
Srdjan Mandic (@srga91)
18th June 2022, 20:52
Hockenheim ’19 was more of a race under mixed conditions, because the cars pitted for inters already on the third lap and before that they were complaining about very poor visibility (Norris was especially vocal about it on the radio). Just proofs how it’s almost impossible to get a fully wet race done with modern cars.
Yes, Spa would have been a very interesting race last year. But it would have only been possible to race if the drivers had sufficient visibility through Eau Rouge/Raidillon. Otherwise there could have been some accidnets like Schumi/Coulthard in ’98.