China: pre-qualifying 2017

There has been less running at this stage than perhaps for any race weekend I’ve seen. Smog, or fog, meant that the medical helicopter was unable to safely take off from the circuit and land at the hospital, which meant that running almost didn’t happen at all. In three hours of time set aside for practice, there were a pair of five minute windows during which we didn’t learn much at all.

McLaren did top the time sheet in second practice, though, so if you backed that, good for you.

So. Not much to base this article on and a real chance that qualifying and perhaps the race might simply be cancelled.

On Twitter, Hamilton suggested running three practice sessions tomorrow, with qualifying Sunday morning and the race Sunday afternoon. Interesting idea, although qualifying would then be at a horrendous time in the UK.

If the race does go ahead, there is a chance of rain, and that also applies to qualifying (if held on Sunday, Saturday should be overcast but dry).

There’s also a rumour both might be held on Saturday (qualifying earlier than usual to fit both in).

I did, on PB, suggest backing Wehrlein not to be classified at 2.75 (after learning Giovinazzi will take his place again), but that’s 99% likely to be made void even if the race goes ahead.

The massive level of uncertainty means I can’t offer a tip. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, there are simply too many unknown unknowns.

The pre-race article will probably be up tomorrow, but it’s possible the race will have started before I’m even out of bed, so we’ll see. I would advocate checking to see if there’s any news on a change to the schedule.

Morris Dancer