Sergio Perez may be gifted Belgian GP pole with weather set to cause chaos

Sergio Perez could be gifted pole position for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix if qualifying is cancelled due to heavy rain. The FIA has confirmed the grid would be determined based on championship order if rain forces officials to not run the session.

This would put Perez on pole with Max Verstappen handed a five-place grid drop for using too many gearbox parts. Fernando Alonso would start on the front row followed by the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.

According to AccuWeather, thunderstorms are predicted for most of the afternoon. There is a yellow weather warning in place for rain for Friday afternoon and much of Saturday. The Met Office reports that there is a 40 percent chance of rain for the rest of the day.

According to Chris Medland, the FIA have now told teams that FP1 would not be used to determine the grid with the one hour practice considered not a competitive session. The FIA has confirmed the priority is to run qualifying for the Grand Prix and could move to cancel other sessions if needed.

However, a worst case scenario would be to use championship order to set the grid. Qualifying has been rained off before with the session usually held on Sunday morning ahead of the race.

But timetables are stretched this weekend with F1 holding a sprint race tomorrow. The weather is still bad for Sunday meaning there is no certainty a session could even be held later.

This would then see qualifying times based on the outcome of FP1 but it is understood teams were not happy with this. BBC F1 reporter Andrew Benson revealed constructors felt FP1 could be treated as a “de facto qualifying session” which would be “necessarily dangerous” with no set-up time.

Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle appeared to disagree with the FIA for not considering using FP1 times. He said: “The worlds gone mad, why would you not have a competitive session in F1? But hey ho.”

McLaren are likely to be most aggrieved with the team enjoying a staggering transformation in recent races. Using championship order, Lando Norris would start the Grand Prix down in P8 with Oscar Piastri in P11 despite the British manufacturer securing podiums at the last two events.