A 'orange alert' has been given for the area as 30 to 60 millimetres of rain per hour and very strong gusts of wind are forecast for Saturday. The Brazil National Institute of Meteorology also issued a severe warning of high coastal winds.

The worst of the weather is expected in the morning, which could put the 11am local time sprint race at risk.

Wet conditions will favour Max Verstappen as he chases down Lando Norris, who himself will aim to build a significant gap over Oscar Piastri in the world championship.

The FIA and Formula One are closely monitoring the situation. However they have little flexibility as regulations dictate that there must be at least a three-hour gap between the end of the Sprint and the start of qualifying.

With qualifying due to take place at 15:00 local time, the Sprint, which is scheduled for 11:00, cannot be impacted by many delays.

The Sprint could be delayed by two or three hours before the latest possible start time for qualifying starts to become a risk - it begins to get dark in Sao Paulo around 5:30pm local time.

The FIA has much more flexibility to move qualifying and could choose to move qualifying to Sunday morning to buy more time to make the sprint happen.

Last year severe weather meant that qualifying had to take place at on Sunday morning at the Brazil GP.

Local weather experts predict that the forecast for Sunday's race will be much more promising. Until then, the FIA and Formula One will be watching the weather forecast closely.

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