Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

USGP qualifying postponed until Sunday

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Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix has been postponed until Sunday morning following torrential rain in Austin.

The remnants of Hurricane Patricia - which battered Mexico on Friday - brought high winds and heavy downpours throughout Saturday afternoon, causing the start of qualifying to be delayed by 30 minutes. After five further delays, the FIA finally cancelled the session at 16:00 local time.

The FIA will now attempt to hold qualifying at 09:00 on Sunday morning, with the weather set to improve later on race day. If qualifying does not take place, the times from FP3 will be used to set a grid. In that scenario, Lewis Hamilton will start from pole position having topped the final practice session on Saturday morning.

Nico Hulkenberg would be second on the grid with Sebastian Vettel dropping ten places due to a grid penalty for taking a new engine, with Vettel having finished the session second fastest. FP3 actually took place while the circuit was closed to spectators due to the conditions.

In an attempt to entertain fans in the grandstand and TV viewers, a number of teams and drivers took to the pit lane, with Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat dancing together in front of the Red Bull garage. At Toro Rosso, Carlos Sainz Sr and Jos Verstappen - fathers of race drivers Carlos Jr and Max - squeezed in to race overalls and put on their sons' race helmets to climb in to the cars in the garage.

There were also scenes of breakdancing at Force India, a Sauber mock rowing boat which was wheeled down the pit lane and Nico Rosberg playing football with Niki Lauda.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.