After spots of rain had fallen sporadically as the cars initially lined up on the grid 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled start time – already pushed back by 35 minutes thanks to the similar delay to the start of sprint shootout qualifying – it began coming down heavily 10 minutes later.
This led the FIA to officially delay the start before it announced the formation lap would begin at 17.12 – a postponement of just seven minutes - but continuing rainfall resulted in an indefinite extension to the pre-race pause.
