Fears that rain may stop play on Sunday in China

Torrential rain forecast for Sunday in the Zhejiang province in China where this weekend’s WTCC race takes place near Ningbo have a number of drivers concerned that the races may be red-flagged or cancelled.

Although there have been a number of wet races in the WTCC’s history, the current TC1-specification cars have problems when large amounts of standing water build up on the track, as the cars tend to aquaplane due to their carbon fibre flat floors.

The WTCC cars managed to get through two wet practice sessions without difficulty on Saturday, but with much heavier rain forecast for Sunday, a number of drivers have doubts as to whether the races could even take place, based on Slovakia 2014, when the bulk of the first race was held behind the safety car, and the second race was ultimately aborted.

“For tomorrow we expect more than twice as much rain, and there’s some question mark over whether we can race tomorrow,” Honda driver Gabriele Tarquini told TouringCarTimes. “On Thursday I was watching the track, and there was a little bit more rain than today. There were plenty of patches at the end of corner one and corner five. I don’t want to say we can’t race, but I have some concerns.”

Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff also admitted concerns over the conditions forecast for Sunday.

“The problem is standing water. It’s not so bad in the corners, but when cars start wobbling on the straight like Hugo Valente was back in Slovakia a few years ago, that’s when things are getting a bit dangerous.

“I hope we can race, but I also hope they don’t end up just being run the whole way behind the safety car instead either,” he added.