Written by Morgan Holiday
After rain delays and two laps under the Safety Car, the Formula 3 Feature Race at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium was cancelled.
How it happened
With significant rain on the track, the race was due to start on time but under the Safety Car. AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides started from pole position, followed by Rafael Câmara and Callum Voisin.
However, once they got underway for the formation lap, several drivers went off and crashed just one that one go around – James Hedley, Tim Tramnitz and Brando Badoer. As a result the race was quickly red-flagged.
After a delay, the race began again under the Safety Car at 9:05 local time in Belgium. On the first official lap of the race it was Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak this time who went off, bringing out the yellow flag as his car stopped on track.
On what was technically Lap 2 of the race, it was red flagged again to recover Inthraphuvasak’s car. By that point, the race had switched to a countdown situtation, with just 15 minutes left on the clock for the rest of the race to take place. The red flag did not stop the countdown.
With 10 minutes left on the clock it was announced that the race would not be resumed and no points would be awarded, a disappointment for American polesitter Benavides who had qualified in first position on Friday.
Unfortunately the reality of Formula One’s Sunday schedule is such that there isn’t time to squeeze everything in the case of rain delays.
Formula 2 will hope for better luck shortly as they look to get going for their Feature Race scheduled to begin at 10:00 local time in Belgium.