Heavy rain threatens Imola washout after latest flood warnings

The region has been hit with extreme weather in recent weeks, with AlphaTauri’s Faenza base affected.

The “violent rain storm” resulted in the death of two people, while hundreds were forced to be evacuated.

Ahead of this weekend at Imola, which is just a 25-minute drive from Faenza, more extreme weather is on the way. 

Locals have been alerted of new flood and landslide warnings with heavy rain forecast over the next couple of days.

Latest forecast shows the potential for 100mm of rain to fall on Wednesday, although it is expected to let up as the race weekend kicks off.

However, this could curtail teams’ preparations for the weekend on Thursday.

The good news is that, so far at least, the Imola circuit hasn’t been damaged by the weather. 

Crash.net understands this weekend's grand prix isn't under threat with F1 having procedures in place to deal with the conditions.

Rain is expected to impact the race weekend itself, which could give teams another challenge in terms of validating their new upgrades.

Pirelli are introducing a new wet tyre for this weekend - one that doesn’t need tyre blankets to be used.

Speaking ahead of the weekend, Pirelli’s Mario Isola said: “Starting from this grand prix, a new compound of full wet tyre will be introduced which will not require the use of tyre warmers beforehand.

“Track tests have shown even better performance than the previous Cinturato Blue full wet, even without the electric heating of the tyre.

“The result of studies carried out by Pirelli, it is the first concrete step towards the use of dry tyres without preheating.”