Damaged barrier forces cancellation of second F1 Academy race at Losail

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The second F1 Academy race of the weekend at the Losail circuit has been cancelled due to barrier repairs at the final corner.

The series was due to run its final race of the weekend in Qatar at 2pm local time. This was the second race of the day at the Losail International Circuit following the earlier Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East round.

However, a crash at the final corner in the Porsche Cup race left the barriers at the exit damaged and in need of repairs.

The original 11am start time of the F1 Academy race was originally delayed by five minutes. A further delay was then confirmed, leading drivers to climb out of their cars.

Workers amassed at the outside run-off of the final corner to try and fix the damage to the barrier. However the growing delay put the race at risk of interfering with the 12:20pn start time for the Formula 2 feature race.

Eventually, the time constraints forced race control to abandon the second race of the weekend. There will be no points awarded as a result.

Race one winner Doriane Pin was due to start the race from pole position, with Maya Weug alongside. Newly-crowned champion Abbi Pulling was supposed to start from third on the grid ahead of wildcard entrant Alisha Palmowski.

It is the second time that an F1 Academy race has been unable to start on time. The first race at Zandvoort was postponed due to heavy rain but ran the following morning on Sunday.

Two races remain in the F1 Academy season, both at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi next weekend. Pulling has already clinched this year’s title with her second place finish in Saturday’s first race, with Dorine Pin 43 points ahead of Weug in second place in the standings.

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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4 comments on “Damaged barrier forces cancellation of second F1 Academy race at Losail”

  1. All in all, it’s fortunate that it wasn’t the first Academy race of the weekend that was cancelled, as that would have left too few points available in the remaining three races for Pulling to be beaten.
    No one wants to win from a cancelled event, better to do it on track.

  2. The Porsche’s crashed yesterday too. Why not move the F1 Academy race after the F1 race? It’s ridiculous the women have to get their race cancelled by a situation out of their control. I guess we know where Susie Wolff is in the pecking order smh

    1. It’s a support series, this is exactly what happens with support series when there delays.

      F1 Academy & the Porsches are the least important activities of the weekend, they would be the first things chopped if required.

      F1 is the priority, followed in importance by F2 & then F3 as the feeder series, then the support races.

  3. I wonder what sort of insurance the series has against cancellations like this? A lot of people are losing a lot of money otherwise.
    It’s not like there’s a big crowd and post event activities, there should be contingency to let them race late after the F1.

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