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SPA F1 FARCE WAS INEVITABLE

Spa F1 farce was inevitable - Image: Motorsport Images

By Mark Fogarty

Call it a gut feeling – or maybe just long experience. For whatever reason, I sensed staying up to watch the Belgian Grand Prix wasn’t going to be worth it.

I just had a feeling the heavy rain, which so enlivened qualifying, was going to make the race an anti-climax. As I watched the early build-up, it was clear that if the sodden conditions persisted, there would at least be long delays before a start and then lots of laps behind the safety car.

So about half an hour before the scheduled start, with Spa-Francorchamps still shrouded in a mist of heavy precipitation, I set ‘Record’, turned off and went to bed.

When I woke up, I wasn’t surprised the race had turned into a shemozzle.

As Mark Skaife would say, you didn’t need to be Nostradamus to foresee a rained-out race.

Formula 1 these days is squeamish about racing in heavy rain at prosaic circuits, much less the majestic – and hazardous – Spa course. F1’s longest track, it swoops and sweeps through the hilly Ardennes region, where the vagaries of the weather have always been acute.

As well as the layout – a shadow of its former, much longer public road glory, but still one of the most challenging and satisfying in racing – the changeable climate is a big part of Spa’s challenge and appeal.

Conditions can be very different from one end of the course to the other.Back in my day on the F1 circuit, rain was a natural hazard of the Belgian GP. Until last decade, races went on in F1 almost regardless of the track conditions.

No longer. Which is why, sadly, the event devolved into a farce. The FIA has no stomach for dangerous races and our man Michael Masi was compelled to call it in difficult circumstances.

Masi had no choice under the rules, but the outcome was embarrassing.

A few laps behind the safety car was an insult to fans at the track and those watching at home around the world.

All the rational reasons in the world don’t justify such humiliating optics.

To the wider world, once again F1 looked timid in the face of extreme track conditions. The best drivers are seen to be unable to drive to the conditions, which is what we are all told when it rains when we’re out on the road.

There is an argument that F1 drivers should be able to adapt to a flooded track – after all, they are supposed to be the best in the world.

Knowledgeable enthusiasts know the drivers are passengers when there are rivers flowing across a track, but casual followers and those only vaguely interested wonder why they can’t ‘drive to the conditions’.

Apart from tennis and cricket, rain doesn’t stop play in most other sports.

What happened at Spa-Francorchamps demands that the FIA and F1 come up with a plan to cancel unviable races and reschedule them.

It would have been much better if the race were abandoned at the outset and held the next day – or later in the season.

‘Rain days’ have long been built into American racing and F1 should adopt the same policy. The logistics of holding a disrupted F1 race on the following Monday or even Tuesday are enormous – but not impossible.

If it is part of the race agreement, organisers of vulnerable events would have to make provisions for running the next day – or next weekend – if required.

NASCAR and IndyCar do it almost routinely. It’s about time F1 was similarly adaptable.

Of course, holding a race on a Monday or later would inconvenience ticket holders, require volunteer officials to be available and disrupt broadcasters’ schedules. But with the understanding it was an option in extreme circumstances, it could be done.

Better a day or two’s delay – or an alternate a week later – than a feeble conclusion like we saw at Spa, where the weather is always going to be a peril in these risk-averse times.

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