Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: F1 personnel told to stay away for second day amid flooding threat
ormula 1 personnel have been told to stay away from the Imola paddock for a second successive day amid the ongoing heavy rainfall and danger of flooding in the area.
Staff working in the build-up to Emilia Romagna Grand Prix this weekend were ordered to leave the paddock on Tuesday afternoon.
And F1 bosses sent out an advisory on Tuesday night telling people not to travel to the circuit and to stay in their hotels and not to travel.
It follows further warnings from the Italian authorities over another day of heavy rainfall on Wednesday in an area where schools have been closed and much of the population ordered to stay at home.
Flooding in downtown Bologna.
/ APAs things stand, the F1 circuit has not been badly affected by the rain but there were images posted on social media on Tuesday of the neighbouring Santerno river bursting its banks.
That situation is expected to worsen during the course of Wednesday – hence the reason for the F1 paddock to remain closed – before the bad weather begins to ease off on Thursday and then returns over the course of the weekend.
Formula 1 remain confident that the weekend’s racing will go ahead as planned and teams have been advised to continue to fly into Italy as planned for the weekend’s racing.
As many as 120,000 spectators are expected at the track for Sunday’s race with F1 saying it already has operational plans in place to deal with the impact of the adverse weather conditions.