Formula One bosses have drawn up extensive contingency plans in case thunder and lightning strike the Miami Grand Prix — an eventuality Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said he feared would leave him and his fellow drivers helpless ‘passengers’ under the sport’s controversial new regulations.
AccuWeather, on whom several teams rely for their meteorological data, stated there is an 88 per cent chance of rain and a 53 per cent threat of thunderstorms as the action unfolds, if it does, at 4pm local time – 9pm in the United Kingdom.
Under Floridian law, major events must be called off in the instance of lightning striking within eight miles of the venue, so there remains the chance Formula One’s return to the grid, after a five-week hiatus due to the conflict in the Middle East, will be interrupted or aborted.
As it stood on Friday night, the policy among Formula One bosses was to keep calm and carry on. But it is understood from sources at the FIA, the sport’s governing body responsible for safety, that the programme could be re-ordered in light of further weather bulletins.
The FIA are also prepared to shield fans in the Hard Rock Stadium arena itself rather than outside, where spectators watch the race, if lightning strikes. The auditorium can accommodate approximately 65,000.
An FIA spokesman said: ‘We are closely monitoring the weather forecast. Having faced a similar situation last year in Miami, we have a contingency plan in place.’
The Miami Grand Prix has been thrown into doubt amid lightning warnings – pictured: lightning days before the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix
Formula one officials are putting contingency plans in place for Lewis Hamilton and Co
Miami is one of the most glamorous races on the calendar, the pre-race grid rammed with celebrities. One expected visitor — unconfirmed at the time of writing — is Kim Kardashian, the reality star romantically linked to Lewis Hamilton. But back to the subject of the rules and the possible rain, it was the seven-time world champion’s team-mate Leclerc who expressed the safety fear.
‘The weird thing about these cars in the wet is that you might end up going much faster at the end of the straight in wet conditions than you do in dry conditions because you don’t have that engine cut because you’re not using as much energy,’ said the Monegasque.
‘You can find yourself in tricky situations, especially if drivers are driving with different power-unit strategies. You’ve got very little visibility. So that’s the trickiness of these rules and something that we need to understand a way out of.
‘In the wet, we are really passengers. In the rain, it’s not about being brave or not. You stay flat out and hope no cars in front of you are slower than you and you just assume they are on the same speed as you.’
