Friday track action for the Argentina Grand prix has been cancelled and pushed back to Saturday following freight delays, series organisers Dorna announced on Thursday evening.
Technical problems that grounded two of the five airplanes scheduled to deliver equipment for all three grand prix classes is to blame for the delay, meaning the cargo is now set to arrive on Friday evening – forcing all of Friday’s planned practice action to be rolled back to Saturday.
As a result of the schedule change, essentially all FP3 sessions for all three classes have been abandoned, with what usually is named FP4 for the premier class now taking place as the third session shortly before qualifying.
This means that the riders that will earn automatic Q2 berths for qualifying will now be decided by the combined times of FP1 and FP2, which will take place on Saturday morning/early afternoon before qualifying for all three classes will follow in the late afternoon.
The warm-up sessions for all three categories on Sunday morning will also be extended by ten minutes, with each class’ respective races set to get underway at the originally scheduled time.
The delayed flight managed to eventually lift off from Mombasa Airport in Kenya in the early hours of Friday morning after being repaired, and at time of writing is currently on the ground in Lagos, Nigeria for its first of two scheduled fuel stops, the aircraft still on-course to arrive in Argentina late this evening.
