Heavy rain forces Barber IndyCar postponement

Heavy rain and high winds prompted officials from the Verizon IndyCar Series to postpone the Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park to Monday after managing to complete just 22 laps on Sunday.

A poor weather forecast led to race control bringing the planned race start forward by 30 minutes in order to try and find a break in the weather, with pole-sitter Josef Newgarden leading the field away on a soaked circuit.

A full course caution was thrown on Lap 12 following a stoppage for Charlie Kimball on-track, with a second following on Lap 17 upon the resumption of the race when Will Power spun out as a result of track conditions at Turn 1.

The race was red flagged on Lap 19, with a 30-minute wait following before an attempt to resume was made behind the pace car, only for the red flag to return four laps later.

Despite hopes of getting to half distance so the race could be declared official, the weather failed to let up, leading to the race being postponed until Monday at 11am local time in Alabama (5pm BST).

"It's tough because we have so many people that come out here to watch us," Newgarden said. "We want to put on a good race. We want to put on a show, so calling the race, it's tough to do that.

"But I think it was the right thing in the end. When we started the race, the conditions were OK. You could run at that level of rain. Then it intensified right before that first caution. It got to a point where it was just too much. There was too much puddling and pooling of water.

"Look, we love racing in the rain. It's got nothing to do with not wanting to run in the rain, not being able to do that. It's this type of track with this water level was too much to race today."

The weather forecast for Monday shows largely sunny conditions, with all drivers except the retired Kimball permitted to take the restart from Lap 23. Penske will be allowed to complete repairs on Power's car, which was impounded by INDYCAR overnight to prevent any additional work being undertaken.

Newgarden will lead the field away on the restart ahead of Sebastien Bourdais and Ryan Hunter-Reay, with 67 laps remaining.