Formula 1 unveiled changes to the start of practice and qualifying sessions during the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Italy to avoid coinciding with the funeral of Prince Philip of the United Kingdom, “as a mark of respect for the Royal funeral”.
Philip, who was married to Queen Elizabeth II for more than seven decades, passed away last week at the age of 99. His funeral will take place at Windsor Castle in west London on Saturday at 3pm local time.
Qualifying will begin at 2:00 pm local time, one hour earlier than scheduled and two hours before the actual service begins.
Similarly, the third practice session on Saturday morning at Imola was brought forward one hour, to comply with F1 rules of leaving a two-hour gap between the third free practice and qualifying. Practice sessions on Friday will be brought forward 30 minutes.
There will be a minute of silence before qualifying. No changes have been announced to the start of the race on Sunday, which will be the second of the season.
Other sporting events in soccer, rugby, and horse racing in Britain have been rescheduled to avoid clashing with the funeral.
Lewis Hamilton won 2021’s opening race after epic duel with Max Verstappen, with another Mercedes vs Red Bull battle predicted at Emilia-Romagna GP.
“I’m super excited and super happy for the fans, that they are excited. Of course, this is only one race, so we don’t know what the future holds in terms of.” Hamilton said.
“With the pace they have, they could be ahead a lot more, but we’re going to work as hard as we can to try and stay close in this battle and I hope for many more of these sorts of races with Max and Valtteri [Bottas, third in Bahrain].” Hamilton added.
