Formula E’s paddock has been evacuated following a severe thunderstorm ahead of this weekend’s Tokyo E-Prix.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Following multiple dry days of scorching temperatures, a heavy storm arrived on Friday afternoon, a few hours ahead of first practice at the Tokyo Big Sight.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Thunder and lightning close to the circuit triggered the evacuation, with everyone in the paddock sheltering inside the Big Sight exhibition centre.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It was soon followed by torrential rain, reported at up to 80 mm per hour in places. The sky rapidly darkened and the temperature cooled, having sat in the mid-30s for the majority of the week.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
An alert read in the media centre: “Due to the current weather conditions, the event is temporarily paused. For safety reasons, please remain in the media centre. We are monitoring this constantly and will provide further updates.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
It marks a second consecutive Formula E event where the paddock has been evacuated, with a similar situation having unfolded earlier this month in Shanghai.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Asia is renowned for torrential storms in July, and it is widely expected in the paddock that further wet weather will play a role over the weekend.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Several Formula E drivers have questioned the decision to race in Japan in July due to both the high temperatures and the frequency of storms.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
As things stand, first practice at 11:00 BST (19:00 local time) will go ahead as scheduled, with no decision yet made on delays or a possible cancellation.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
*UPDATE: The evacuation notice ended over an hour ahead of first practice, which went ahead as planned after an initial 15-minute delay.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula E’s paddock has been evacuated following a severe thunderstorm ahead of this weekend’s Tokyo E-Prix. Following multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-820706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}