Formula E Ad Diriyah: Second practice also cancelled after rain

After Saturday's first 45-minute ABB FIA Formula E practice session was cancelled due to heavy rain hitting Riyadh shortly after sunrise, a one-hour-long combined session that was due to get under way at 8.35 local time was also axed.

To give teams and drivers some running before qualifying, a 35-minute practice session has been added and is due to take place at 10.15am local time - which will also delay qualifying, which had been scheduled for 10.50am.

The start of FP2 was already delayed just before it was meant to begin.

Attempts were made to clear the 1.5-mile track, with course cars scrubbing the surface to clear the wet areas.

But deep areas of standing water - particularly at Turns 9/10, which sit at the bottom of an undulating section of the track at the very start of the second sector, and at Turn 17 - remained.

Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird accompanied FIA race director Scot Elkins on a track inspection in a course car.

When they returned to the pits, several drivers - including reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Techeetah), Audi's Lucas di Grassi and Nissan e.dams driver Sebastien Buemi - gathered in the pitlane to discuss the situation and how it could impact the rest of the event.

Trucks capable of pumping water away from the track appeared at the problem areas, but 25-minutes after FP2 was supposed to start, it was announced that the proposed session had been cancelled.

Qualifying is scheduled to get under way at 10.50am local time, with the drivers split into four groups - two sets of five drivers and groups three and four containing six drivers.

Those groups will be run in finishing order from the 2017/18 season, with the highest place drivers - Vergne, di Grassi, Bird, Buemi and Daniel Abt - going out in group one.

Drivers who have entered the series for the first time are set to run in numerical order of their car numbers.

TV cameras captured Vergne proposing qualifying become a hybrid-practice session where all drivers are on track setting timed laps at the same time, while other drivers suggested the qualifying power settings be reduced from 250kW due to the lack of preparation.

A later update then confirmed the replacement, shorter session.