Two-day Eifel GP "a practice run for Imola"

Racing Point team principal Otmar Szafnauer is excited by the prospect of an 'Imola practice run' after all Friday running at the Nürburgring was cancelled.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will be staged across two days when Formula 1 visits Imola later this month, with only a single 90-minute practice session on Saturday scheduled ahead of qualifying.

The Eifel GP will provide a near-perfect practice run after FP1 and FP2 were called off due to fog that prevented the medical helicopter from flying to the nearest hospitals.

Questioned on the impact the loss of running now has on the weekend preparations, Szafnauer said, "Well, it is kind of like a practice run for Imola where we are only going to do two days.

"Albeit, I think we will have an hour and a half in FP3. It will just put the pressure on everybody to get up to speed even quicker."

Racing Point currently sits fourth in the constructors' standings, just two points behind McLaren, although only five ahead of in-form Renault.

Szafnauer, however, believes the table would look considerably different had it not been for numerous occasions of bad luck for the Silverstone-based team.

"This season, we have scored a good amount of points but we have had a little bit of bad luck too," explained Szafnauer.

"We had a tyre failure when Lance [Stroll] had a chance to score a podium and some good points and he did a great job starting at the last race and then got punted off by [Charles] Leclerc and lost a good amount of points there too.

"We also had a bit of bad luck in Silverstone with Nico Hülkenberg not getting out of the garage when we had a pretty quick car.

"All in all, we have a good car, there is a lot of racing left and it will be a good challenge to try and get third in the constructors' championship."

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