The typhoon Phanfone, which is already prompting the organizers of the Japanese Grand Prix to question the maintenance or not of the race at the scheduled time on Sunday (3:00 PM local time), may also have an impact on the Russian Grand Prix, which will be held next Sunday, due to the disruptions it could cause in the teams’ preparations.<\/p>\n
The brunt of the weather phenomenon is expected to hit Suzuka on Sunday afternoon and especially Monday. However, even if the race is moved up to start late in the morning (from 11:00 a.m.) in order to avoid the risk of declining visibility too quickly, the expected torrential rains and strong gusts of wind could hinder the proper packing of the teams’ equipment and its transportation after the Japanese round.<\/p>\n
Delays in the preparation and possible cancellation of the flights transporting the paddock equipment should not prevent the normal running of the Russian Grand Prix but could nevertheless make things more difficult for the teams.<\/p>\n
On the side of Bernie Ecclestone, the greatest firmness is required: the president of FOM states that nothing will change regarding the schedule. “I am not moving anything anywhere. If it rains, the teams will race. No one knows what will happen. I asked someone a few minutes ago, and they said the weather was fine. It rained on Thursday, but otherwise, it’s OK. Maybe there will be a storm,” he stated to *Forbes* during a meal in London.<\/p>\n
Then, the financial chief of F1 added: \u00ab Normally, teams want to be able to predict [the evolution of weather conditions] 10 minutes in advance, but you can’t do that with the weather. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Ubimet, the Austrian company in charge of providing these forecasts to the teams, indicated this Friday that the imminent threat of Typhoon Phanfone on Japan is gradually diminishing while specifying that rain will be largely persistent [Sunday] \u2013 with potentially a drier interlude \u2013 but may also become heavy at times, more certainly after midday.<\/p>\n
\u00ab Phanfone will probably pass southeast of Suzuka. There are also weather models that send the eye [of the typhoon] directly over the circuit. In both cases, severe structural damage is expected on Monday, with possibly very extensive damage in the second case. \u00bb Ubimet concludes by stating that \u00ab adhering to this tight schedule [for the Grand Prix] will depend entirely on how the typhoon behaves, and it will be a challenging task. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The typhoon Phanfone, which threatens the Japanese Grand Prix, could mainly impact the teams’ preparation before heading to Sochi for the first Russian F1 Grand Prix in history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":40068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[87,1491,1534],"class_list":["post-14512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-bernie-ecclestone","tag-sotchi","tag-suzuka"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n