Weather reports in recent days have hinted that torrential rains should be expected at Sepang from Thursday to Sunday, and are most likely to occur in the afternoon. And considering that neither of the F1 teams have yet tested with Pirelli under similar weather conditions, winning the race should become more unpredictable than winning the lottery.
“Right now I would think you would have to start behind the safety car and in doing that, you are given the tires you have to choose,” Schu told reporters in Sepang about the possibility of rain starting to pour before the red lights go out, according to Autosport. And that would be the best case scenario, because in case the downpour starts afterwards, things will get really complicated.
“Come the race and there are normal conditions, then you have to make decisions, and that is a little bit more of a lottery. It's difficult in terms of preparation because I had no rain running over the winter.”
“I had a little in Barcelona, but it was so wet I couldn't run, so it's going to be an interesting experience for me if it happens the first time this weekend. I don't know the tyre variation between the intermediate and the heavy wet tyre, and for most of the people that will be the case. So it will be a nice lottery. Let's see who wins it.”
Last year, rain ruined things for Ferrari and McLaren in qualifying, as neither of the 4 drivers racing for those two teams managed to set a lap time in Q1 before it started raining on the circuit. A year back, the race was stopped before time because of heavy rain and low visibility, as the running had been set for 4 PM in order to suit the audiences in Europe.
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