Emilia Romagna Grand Prix suspended after Bottas and Russell crash: F1 – live!

9.39am EDT 09:39

Lap 21: George Russell, who has never got a point for Williams, is now 10th. Hamilton and Verstappen have pulled away into a class of their own and have just lapped Fernando Alonso in 16th.

9.37am EDT 09:37

Lap 19: Norris is told that his team “don’t want to be the first car onto dries”. He is five seconds ahead of Ricciardo and closing in on Perez.

9.34am EDT 09:34

Lap 17: “I have a lot more pace that I cannot use at the moment,” moans Norris, who is stuck behind teammate Ricciardo. The latter is promptly told to get out of the way.

Ricciardo is asked by McLaren F1 Team to allow Norris to overtake Photograph: Clive Mason – Formula 1/Formula 1/Getty Images

Updated at 9.43am EDT

9.32am EDT 09:32

“I can’t tell if this weather favours Max or Lewis,” writes Edwin Innih Imoesi. “This is intense. Bad luck for Sergio.”

9.31am EDT 09:31

Lap 15: Mick Schumacher is now 18th, with a replacement wing. Gasly pits to get some intermediates fitted.

9.29am EDT 09:29

Lap 14: Gasly’s full wets are proving horribly costly. He is 14th having started fifth.

Updated at 9.30am EDT

9.27am EDT 09:27

Lap 13: Perez, currently fourth, has been given a stop-and-go penalty of 10 seconds for overtaking two cars under the safety car. That will cost him dear – he will have to stop in the pits for the full 10 seconds.

Sergio Perez passes the Red Bull Racing pitwall Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Updated at 9.52am EDT

9.26am EDT 09:26

Lap 11: More squabbling between the trio in midfield as Norris and Sainz both inch past Gasly. And more rain arrives.

9.23am EDT 09:23

Lap 10: The leader clocks up his fastest lap. Perez is having less fun. “The steering wheel is moving by itself,” he complains to his team. Not ideal.

9.20am EDT 09:20

Lap 8: Sainz is flying and has overtaken Stroll and Gasly. In comes Norris, and he, Gasly and Stroll go three wide with Norris soaring past both. Remarkable driving from Norris.

9.18am EDT 09:18

Lap 7: The racing gets back underway and Hamilton and Verstappen go toe to toe again, this time Hamilton resists going for the kill.

Hamilton tries to overtake Verstappen again Photograph: Lars Baron/Getty Images

Updated at 9.37am EDT

9.17am EDT 09:17

Lap 5: Perez skids though the gravel under safety car – these conditions have thrown a cat among the pigeons.

9.12am EDT 09:12

Lap 4: Schumacher has crashed behind the safety car, trying to get temperature into his tyres, and hit the wall on the exit to the pit lane! There’s damage to the nose of his car but his race isn’t over yet… But he can’t pit because the lane is closed – so he’ll have to go round again before getting any repairs.

Updated at 9.14am EDT

9.10am EDT 09:10

Lap 3: Latifi was at fault in his collision with Mazepin, who he drove onto the grass. Mercedes tell Hamilton:“Looks like we have damage to the front end wing.”

The Safety Car leads Max Verstappen and the rest of the field Photograph: Dan Istitene – Formula 1/Formula 1/Getty Images

Updated at 9.21am EDT

9.08am EDT 09:08

Lap 2: Tsunoda, who started last, is not mucking around and has already made his way up to 15th.

9.07am EDT 09:07

Lap 1: Ricciardo steams ahead of Gasly and Stroll into fifth while Latifi has hit Mazepin and spun into the wall, pretty hard. He’s okay though. And Leclerc has stolen ahead of Perez into third.

The car of Nicholas Latifi of Canada and Williams is removed from the circuit after crashing into the wall Photograph: Clive Mason – Formula 1/Formula 1/Getty Images

Updated at 9.26am EDT

9.05am EDT 09:05

Lap 1: And we’re off. Verstappen gets away brilliantly, side by side with Hamilton into the first corner. Hamilton bounces over the curbs but holds on to second with Perez in close attendance. “I’ve got damage,” he says in his radio.

Verstappen holds his line as Hamilton is forced wide Photograph: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters Hamilton makes contact with Verstappen as he rejoins the track Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images

Updated at 9.29am EDT

9.03am EDT 09:03

The gang rev up, and then head off for the formation lap, water spraying everywhere. Leclerc spins off! But gets going again and nips back past Gasly in to fourth

9.00am EDT 09:00

How they start:

1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)2. Sergio Perez (Red Bull)3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)5. Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri)6. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)7. Lando Norris (McLaren)8. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)9. Esteban Ocon (Alpine)10. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)11. Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)12. George Russell (Williams)13. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)14. Nicholas Latifi (Williams)15. Fernando Alonso (Alpine)16. Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)17. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)18. Mick Schumacher (Haas)19. Nikita Mazepin (Haas)20. Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri)

Updated at 9.00am EDT

8.59am EDT 08:59

Gasly, Ocon, Schmuacher and Mazepin are going to start with full wet tyres. And there will be no safety car start. Almost time now…

8.58am EDT 08:58

“It is tricky,” says Lando Norris, channelling his inner Joseph Simmons. “It is full wet at turn two but dry at the back. It will be a tricky start. It makes it more exiting. It’ll be a lot of fun as long as I keep it on the road.”

8.47am EDT 08:47

The cars of both Stroll and Vettel are undergoing some panicked last-minute work from the Aston Martin technicians – as is Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.

8.41am EDT 08:41

And Fernando Alonso has driven into a wall. fine work all round.

8.39am EDT 08:39

It’s all happening, and the race is still 20 minutes away. Lance Stroll is reporting issues with his brakes – it looks like they might have caught fire – while Bottas has a tyre puncture.

8.31am EDT 08:31

And in more immediate news: it’s chucking it down in Imola! The cars are currently ploughing through puddles as they go through their reconnaissance laps.

8.23am EDT 08:23

Valtteri Bottas is blaming his disappointing display yesterday on Technical Difficulties. “First run, I went into turn two and had a really sudden snap from the rear end, and then it really continued through sector one, and I lost a lot of time,” he said. “Actually the same thing [happened] in run two; it was never there. I couldn’t trust the rear end of the car, and it was something that I didn’t feel in the whole qualifying before that.”

8.20am EDT 08:20

Hot off the press: F1 announced this morning that there will be a new grand prix in the calendar as of next year – in Miami, the city that keeps the roof blazin’. Here’s our full report:

6.18am EDT 06:18

Preamble

Lewis Hamilton produced a performance to surprise even himself yesterday, completing one of his best laps ever – steaming around the Imola track in 1min 14.411sec – to claim pole position for ahead of the Red Bulls of Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen. for the last few years Hamilton has had little competition for supremacy – but now he has exactly that, and is responding how the best sportspeople do: by upping his game accordingly.

The scene is set, then, for today’s race amid the resplendent scenery of northern Italy, on a track whose cruelty was laid bare yesterday by Lando Norris: his majestic final lap, which would have taken him second, took him outside the track limits by a matter of inches and thus didn’t count.

Valtteri Bottas’s did – although it was only enough to put him in eighth, which gives Red Bull a rare tactical advantage over Mercedes, with two drivers at the front in Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen. “It is going to take us as a team performing as close to perfection as possible,” reckons Hamilton. A high bar. Let’s see if they can clear it.