Torrential rain and thundersto🌠rms hit the Sochi Autrodrom overnight and continued through Saturday morning, causing the opening Formula 2 race of the weekend to be postponed.

Officials had already taken the decision to rౠeschedule the first Formula 3 race on Friday afternoon to pre-empt the weather situation and ease the pressure on a packed weekend schedu🍌le.

F1’s third practice session is due to get u☂nderway at 12pm local time (10am BST), before qualifying takes place at 3pm (1pm BST). Both th🐈e second races for F2 and F3 are also meant to be held on Saturday.

Not quite ready for slicks yet...

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— Formula 2 (@Formula2)

While it is hoped that a complete washout like la🍨st month’s Belgian Grand Prix can be avoided, F1 has put a contingency pꦬlan in place.

Speaking on Saturday morning, FIA race director Michael Masi explained that F1 will hold out and continue to evaluate the weather, with the hope that qualifying can be staged in the afternoon if the rain eases as expect♓ed.

“The procedure for today will be thౠat we will aim to start all sessions and get everything ready from an operational perspective and then judge the 🍸conditions at the time,” Masi said.

“From what we are seeing from the forecast side, is that we will have this level of 🥀rain until about 1:30-2pm local time and then it decreasing in the afternoon.

“The priorit🎐y from today’s perspective is obviously Formula 1 qualifying this afternoon, so Formula 1 will take priority. So the aim with FP3 would be, we would have a look at what it’s like, and we would have a couple of options.

“We could start the session and red-flag it immediately so that the cl๊ock runs down and then judge what the weather is like at that mo💖ment in time. Alternatively, if it’s just going to be torrential for the entire session, we would just abandon FP3 and aim for qualifying.”

With sunset at 6.13pm local time, fading light 🉐will be the ultimate deciding factor as to whether F1 qualifying can go ahead, or be moved to Sunday morning.

The last time F1 qualifying took place on Sunday morning was at the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix when a typh♕oon disrupted proceedings.

Switching qualifying to Sunday morning would also result in an overhaﷺul to the F2 and F3 programmes, though F1 will tak💛e priority.

"Thꦡe determining factor this afternoon will be the light,” Masi explained. “So sunset locally is about 18:15, quarter past six in the evening, but with weather conditions like this obviously the light diminishes far earlier.

“So th🌳at will ultimately be our cut-off point. If qualifying isn’t able to happen today, as we’ve seen a few times 𓆉before in the past, then we will redo the programme and hold qualifying on Sunday morning.”

Currently, the forecast suggests a much better and drier picture for 🐠S🍨unday.

In the event that qualifying ha𓄧d to be abandoned completely, F1 would have the option to use the results from Friday’s second practice session to set the grid.

If that did happen, Valtteri Bottas would start Sunday’s grand prix from pole position ahead of Mercedes teammate Lewis Ha🧔milton. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Lando Norris would line-up on the second row.

✃The engine penalties for Charles Leclerc and championship leader Max Verstappen would still apply in this 💧scenario, meaning they would start from the back as planned.