Spa could be postponed

Friday's second practice session around the forested Spa Francorchamps circuit was a wash-out when heavy rain made the track completely undriveable and none of the 25 drivers set a time.

Only a handful of laps were run in the first session and with the weather predicted to worsen rather than improve even world champion Michael Schumacher was left wondering whether the race will go ahead.

"A normal race in these conditions is not possible," said Schumacher. "Maybe it can get better, but if conditions are like this then it is not possible to race apart from behind the safety car."

"I think this is the best (conditions) it will be this weekend. As far as we know now it is predicted to get worse and at the moment they are predicting heavy rain on Sunday. Today was supposed to be the best in terms of rain, so we still have to find out what that means for the weekend. It is difficult to explain how difficult it is driving in these conditions."

"It is too much rain. We probably needed a propeller to make it through this amount of water! You could see when the drivers that went out were on track that they couldn't really drive. In these conditions nobody can drive except maybe the safety car. In the end, you can only do things that are possible. If it is impossible to drive we will have to find another way."

Drivers can use wet weather tires in the rain and there are specially designed extreme weather' tires, but Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier said even those were not good enough to tackle the amount of water on track here Friday.

Jenson Button backed Schumacher's claims that the race cannot go ahead if conditions persist and explained: "It is disappointing for the fans but we can't really help with that situation. We can't stop it raining here. It's been a pretty boring day for all of us, not being able to do any running, but there was no chance and if it is raining like that we can't race on Sunday. It would be too wet. It is dangerous."

"You are not in control of the car in any way. If you hit a big puddle like Liuzzi did that's it, it could be a massive accident. You are not in control and that's not what we're here to do. And the forecast is for rain on Sunday."