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Masi: Pages of reasons Belgian GP couldn't be moved to another day

The FIA's Race Director, Michael Masi, has explained that, due to complex logistics, the Belgian Grand Prix couldn't be shifted to another day despite the rain.

Michael Masi has explained that the Belgian Grand Prix couldn't simply be postponed to another day, after suggestions during the delays due to heavy rain at Spa-Francorchamps that the race could be pushed back until Monday. With no sign of the rain easing up to allow the race to go ahead, the possibility of shifting the race to Monday was discussed by broadcasters, but Masi said the logistics of a 24-hour delay would be too much. This includes the consideration of track marshals, most of whom are volunteers who would be required back at their usual day jobs for a normal workday. "I think there's a whole range... the list would be pages long between organisers, everyone here, all those here, there's just no ability to postpone to the following day," Masi told Sky Sports. Asked whether the race could have been postponed to a later point in the year, Masi said returning to Belgium wasn't likely. "I don't know if that's logistically a possibility for that to occur," he said. Masi's afternoon proved a headache, given the pressure to try holding a race in weather conditions that just didn't want to ease up. He explained that he had tried to find a suitable window to go racing, using driver feedback, but the weather never cleared to a safe standard. "I was going with the teams obviously, I asked all the teams deliberately, particularly the first time round, to get the drivers' feedback," said Masi. "During the formation laps, communication between the team and the drivers is not allowed. But I asked them to actually ask all of the drivers to get feedback between all of us on the FIA desk. We were monitoring all the radio channels to actually get the drivers' feedback on what they thought the conditions were like, [the] visibility and get the same when we went out again. "It's disappointing not to be able to complete a race. And so, unfortunately on this occasion, we could not go the full distance that was available. "We had the provisions in the ISC (International Sporting Code) to stop the clock, [that] was what we tried to do to see if we could get ourselves in that weather window of some activity, but the weather changes too quickly up and down."

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