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After the second
of Friday's practice sessions was washed out with heavy rain making it
dangerous several drivers and Michelin's Pierre Dupasquier have all
expressed their concern over whether or not the race can go ahead if the
weather conditions do not improve. Reports have the weather conditions even
worse on the Sunday of the race.
For Dupasquier felt that the conditions if repeated on Sunday would make it
impossible for the race to go ahead.
He said: "We are expecting the same thing for the rest of the weekend. It is
the FIA's decision whether they race or not, but the drivers do not want to
go out with that kind of weather.
"The tyres could not handle this amount of water. They wanted a monsoon tyre
in the past, but it doesn't make sense."
Dupasquier was supported by both BAR's Jenson Button and Ferari's Michael
Schumacher, who also supported the view that if the weather conditions did
not improve then serious consideration should be given to hot holding the
race.
Button said: "If it is raining like that no, we can't race on Sunday. It
would be too wet, definitely. It is dangerous. You are not in control of the
car in any way.
"If you hit a big puddle like Vitantonio Liuzzi did that's it, it could be a
massive accident. You are not in control and that's not what we're here to
do.
"The forecast is for rain on Sunday. It's alright if it stops raining
because the water runs away but it's when it is raining consistently and
constantly it's just impossible to run."
Michael said: "It is difficult to tell you how difficult it is driving in
these conditions. We probably needed a propeller to make it through this
amount of water. It is too much rain. In these conditions nobody can drive
except maybe the safety car.
"Obviously we don't know yet [if the race will be cancelled], maybe we would
do a race under the safety car, but a normal race in these conditions is not
possible. It is not me to ask if there will be a race, but if conditions are
like this the it is not possible apart from behind the safety car. But maybe
it can get better.
"In the end, you can only do things that are possible. If it is impossible
to drive we will have to find another way."
The drivers concerns were backed up by Liuzzi's crash early on in the second
practice session that saw his car crash into the barrier afyer he lost
control of it in the very difficult conditions.
Michael added: "You could see when the drivers that went out were on track
that they couldn't really drive. With Liuzzi, when the rain was really
heavy, he could do nothing. Fernando just did an installation lap and when
Doornbos came back he was very, very slow because it is just too much.
"As far as we know now it is predicted to get worse and at the moment they
are predicting heavy rain on Sunday. Today was supposed to be the best in
terms of rain, so we still have to find out what that means for the
weekend." |
