Rain started overnight and continued in the morning and officials said they decided “in the interests of safety” to call off the session before it started. FIA race director Michael Masi said that he would try to run qualifying as normal starting from 13:00 BST but he would “judge conditions at the time”. The forecast is for heavy rain until about 14:00 local time (12:00 BST). The FIA will continue to try throughout Saturday afternoon to run qualifying and “take it step by step”, as Masi put it. Sunset in Sochi is at 18:15 local time (16:15 UK time) on Saturday.

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