Formula One has altered the timings of this weekend’s practice and qualifying sessions at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix out of respect to the funeral service of Prince Philip, which will take place in the U.K. on Saturday afternoon.
A minute of silence will also be held ahead of Saturday’s qualifying session at Imola in memory of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
The qualifying session will now take place an hour earlier at 2 p.m. CET, with final practice on Saturday morning also moving one hour earlier to an 11 a.m. CET slot.
Friday’s practice sessions have been moved 30 minutes earlier, with first practice set to start at 11 a.m. CET and second practice at 2.30 p.m. CET, in order to comply with FIA regulations regarding the timing of the sessions over the weekend.
The timing of Sunday’s race remains unaltered.
“As a mark of respect for the royal funeral, qualifying will be moved to avoid a clash with the service,” an FIA statement said. “This means qualifying will take place between 14:00-15:00 CET. As a result FP3 will move to 11:00-12:00 CET in order to comply with the regulations that state Qualifying must be 120 minutes after FP3.
“On Friday FP2 will move to 14:30-15:30 CET and FP1 will move to 11:00-12:00 CET due to the rules requiring those sessions to be separated by at least two and a half hours and FP3 needing to start no less than nineteen hours after the end of FP2.”
The funeral of Prince Philip will take place at 3 p.m. BST on Saturday in the U.K., which will be 4 p.m. in Italy, meaning qualifying should finish an hour before the funeral, assuming there are no red flag stoppages.
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is the second race of the 2021 Formula One season and will take place three weeks on from Lewis Hamilton’s victory at the first race in Bahrain.
Updated session times converted to ET for U.S.-based readers can be found below.
Emilia Romagna GP (ET)
Practice 1 – Friday, April 16 – 5 a.m. ET
Practice 2 – Friday, April 16 – 8.30 a.m. ET
Practice 3 – Saturday, April 17 – 5 a.m. ET
Qualifying – Saturday, April 17 – 8 a.m. ET
Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – Sunday, April 18 – 9 a.m. ET