Qualifying for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix has been moved to the morning of the race, due to the approach of Typhoon Hagibis.
Organisers announced this morning that tomorrow’s session had been cancelled “in the interests of safety for the spectators, competitors and everyone at the Suzuka Circuit”.
Qualifying will now take place at 10am local time on Sunday, with the race due to start at 2.10pm. It is forecast that the storm, expected to be one of the most violent to hit in recent years, will have passed by then, so the race should not be affected.
An F1 statement read: “As a result of the predicted impact of Typhoon Hagibis, Mobilityland and the Japanese Automobile Federation (JAF) have decided to cancel all activities scheduled to take place on Saturday.”
F1 bosses have stressed that the new timetable for this weekend is still subject to change and that they “will continue to monitor the situation”.
If qualifying is not able to take place on Sunday, the grid will be dictated by the results from the second practice session, in which Valtteri Bottas led Lewis Hamilton to a Mercedes one-two today. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was third.
