Chaos ensued at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil during the third qualifying session. The storm made the roof of the grandstand collapse. No serious injuries have been reported. The Q3 was cut short.
Several people suffered minor injuries after the roof of the Porto Seguro grandstand near the final corner of the race track crashed down due to heavy wind and rainfall during the qualifying session for the Sao Paolo Grand Prix.
The sky turned from dark, and the wind started blowing violently in a matter of minutes, right in the middle of the Q3 qualifying session, the last of the three. That prompted the F1 marshals to cut the session short. With people still in the grandstand, the roof was ripped off and blown away by the wind.
"What a scary 10 minutes on track. A grandstand roof collapsed at the last corner and nearly got decapitated by falling debris," F1 photographer Andy Hone says. He shared two photographs of what is left of the roof of the grandstand on former Twitter/current X platform.
Dramatic footage from the race track, shared on social media by people who went through the horror, shows people wearing rain capes during the violent storm that wreaked havoc at the Interlagos circuit. Several sustained minor injuries, reporting cuts and bruises, but not because of the roof collapsing. To blame for those was the chaos that ensued when people started running for the exits.
Track officials announced that the grandstands will be inspected before being reopened for the race and the events related to it. The weather forecast for Interlagos seems more optimistic on race day, which reduces the risk of such hazard for the rest of the weekend.
Drivers saw the storm coming over the Interlagos circuit
Despite the unpredictable weather, things were the exact opposite on the race track. Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen will be starting Sunday’s race from pole to chase his 17th win of the season. The 26-year old was already crowned Formula 1 World Champion this season, for the third consecutive season.
As they aligned for the qualifying session, the radar showed heavy rain closing in, so the drivers expected the storm to break over the Interlagos circuit in a matter of minutes but hoped to finish the Q3 before it started. The weather, though, put a premature end to the session as the drivers were red-flagged.
"When we lined up to go out for Q3, you could see the sky was black," Max Verstappen said. "The rain started coming in, the wind picked up and changed direction in the middle of the section. I have never experienced something that had such a big influence on a car balance."
"That was one of or probably the strangest session of my career," Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc complained. The Monegasque driver qualified second for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
"The weather today was crazy, I’ve never seen it change so drastically as that. I was sliding around and had no grip," Mercedes-AMG Petronas driver George Russell explained. Russel and his teammate Lewis Hamilton will start the race from the fifth and sixth positions on the grid.
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