Last year in Japan it poured buckets, the promised views of Mount Fuji were hidden by rain clouds, and Lewis Hamilton came away with what looked like a winning lead in the driver’s championship.
The Fuji Speedway is also the venue where McLaren’s James Hunt famously won the 1976 World Championship on a day so wet that his main rival Niki Lauda opted to park up his Ferrari and sit out the race in his garage.
But if Hamilton is going to be gifted a second free pass by his Italian rivals following their shocker in Singapore, it’s unlikely to be the weather that hands it to him – the forecast for Fuji is for a mostly sunny race day, while any rain on Saturday morning should have cleared by qualifying.
Temperatures look like being in the high teens, around 17-19 degrees centigrade (that’s the mid 60s for those of us who still think in old money), with the wind staying light.
Here are the prospects in nearby Shizuoka:
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