First F2 sprint race postponed in Sochi due to torrential rain

As forecast ahead of the weekend, the rain has been unrelenting at the Sochi Autodrom leaving organisers with no choice but to postpone the race.

The FIA hopes to run it later in the day if conditions improve, although the weather forecast doesn’t look promising with rain expected all afternoon. 

Formula 3’s first sprint race of the weekend was moved to Friday afternoon due to the expected rain on Saturday.

Due to the sunset being around 1800 local time, there was no opportunity to run F2’s first race of the weekend on Friday.

The weather is expected to be better on Sunday, but Formula 1 will take priority with qualifying potentially being moved to tomorrow morning if conditions don’t improve in the afternoon. 

Dan Ticktum was set to start from reverse grid pole ahead of Hitech Grand Prix duo Juri Vips and Liam Lawson.

Story of qualifying

F2 points leader Oscar Piastri stormed to his third consecutive pole of the season with another sensational lap.

Main title rival Guanyu Zhou was 0.3s shy in fourth as Guanyu Zhou and Theo Pourchaire qualified behind Piastri.

Pole for Piastri has allowed him to extend his points lead to Zhou to 15 points with two rounds in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi to come.

Behind the top four of Piastri, Daruvala, Pourchaire and Zhou was Ralph Boschung, who enjoyed his best qualifying of the season.

Jake Hughes qualified sixth ahead of the second Prema of Robert Shwartzman.