FIA working on “back-up plans” to ensure running at F1 Eifel GP

The FIA is preparing “back-up plans” to ensure that further on-track running is not impacted on Saturday at Formula 1’s Eifel Grand Prix.

Both scheduled practice sessions on Friday were abandoned after bad weather prevented the medial helicopter from taking off and flying safely to the “receiving” hospital nearest to the Nurburgring, meaning the day ended without any cars taking to the track.

With the fog failing to lift throughout the day, the FIA ultimately had no option but to scrap both FP1 and FP2 having initially delayed both sessions.

But F1 race director Michael Masi revealed that plans are being formulated to save the rest of the race weekend if poor conditions are repeated on Saturday and Sunday.

“[For the rest of the weekend] the forecast looks better,” said Masi. “But we are also working on some back-up plans should we have a similar situation to be able to work around.

“We are working on those as we speak. We’ll work on the backup plans and advise everyone accordingly at the time.”

F1’s regulations state that on-track action cannot commence if direct transfer to the nearest hospital would exceed more than 20 minutes by road in the event that the medical helicopter is grounded.

While Masi would not go into details about the plans being explored by the FIA, one potential option could be to create a temporary trauma centre that could be reached in time by road.

"We're hoping that the fog will lift," said Masi. "We've seen it coming in and out all day, so we've been operating on the 30-minute interval with updates, working with local air traffic control, with the helicopter pilot, for the medical helicopter.

"The weather and dampness is fine. It's just the medical helicopter is not able to fly to the receiving hospitals due to fog, so even though we have the broadcast helicopter that's flying only around the circuit, to go from here to any of the hospitals, should something happen, it's not possible.

"And therefore from a safety perspective, we would not start the session."