Yellow flag … Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton go ahead of Hulkenberg.

"It could be wild," says Brundle. Whoever runs last has a chance. Cross that line in time to start a final lap …

Hulkenberg fastest again! Drop zone is now Perez, Sainz, Stroll, Bottas, Colapinto, Bortoleto.

Russell's 1:32.441 is followed by Norris, +0.356, then Antonelli, +0.361.

Verstappen pulls out a 1:33.074, ahead of Bearman, Lawson, Lindblad. But then Russell betters the Red Bull, as do Norris and Antonelli.

gets himself out of trouble, up to fourth.

Antonelli doesn't have a proper time. Drop zone is Stroll, Colapinto, Bearman, Bortoleto and Camara.

George Russell 1st, now Norris second. The lead is changing hands so much as conditions improve.

Hulkenberg now fastest in 1:35.477. Drivers adapting. Hamilton now P1 with 1:34.373.

Bortoleto in the grass but escapes. Phew.

"You are living on your wits," avers Brundle.

This is chaos. Verstappen 1:36.724, Leclerc +0.025, then Alonso!

Verstappen in a 1:37.932. Leclerc may have lost a time.

1:40.512 from Hulkenberg.

Yellow flag … Rafa Camara, the new man in Haas. But he got going again.

Bottas is the first man on a timed lap. "You might need a calendar rather than a stopwatch," says Brundle.

Mercedes still sitting in the garage.

Brundle observes that everyone is leaving a gap to the car in front. You want some visbility.

But cars are going out.

"It's pretty heavy," says Piastri.

is seeing the crowd back in their ponchos … some teams are staying in their garages. "Rain is intensifying again," says Hulkenberg.

at 7.26pm GMT.

More rain coming, though, so everyone needs a lap asap.

says restart is coming in three and a half minutes.

says this is our opening. But Ted Kravitz is worried we won't get out in time.

Drivers getting back in the car, just in case Bernd Mayländer says yes.

"Now the issue is that we have rain in 15 minutes … We just have to be ready each time the safety car goes out … We all want to go on track, but race control is right, we have to put safety first."

getting cheers and screams as he goes round in the safety car.

"The wettest conditions I have experienced in a race car, and in a car full stop to be honest, and that's a lot for someone growing up in the UK."

This is now the longest ever Q1, overtaking Hungary in 2016, which lasted 1hr 10min.

Rain easing and the radar looks better.

A few video nasties now, with shots from the cars that did go out for the ill-fated 2mins 23sec.

speaks on camera and the safety car driver says it's just not safe. I am beating myself over the head for not realising that Interlagos, like Interlaken in Switzerland, means between the lakes.

"There's an expression in Portuguese called . It means drying up ice, with a towel. It's used referring to doing anything futile, of course. The more you dry up the ice cube with the towel, the more it melts and so on. It is literally what those race marshals are being paid to do ..."

reckons the next half an hour to 40 minutes could be drier. Get Q1 done and set a grid.

Water flowing on the Rio José Carlos Pace.

in the safety car reports conditions are now worse.

I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening.

how the over-by-over team feel when it rains.

back on track in the safety car. But "it's grim out there" says Croft. "It's murky, it's miserable."

increasingly sceptical that we will actually get qualifying today. Apparently a rule change for this season means that if qualifying cannot take place in time for the race, then it would start in championship order.

Oops. Lightning.

"I think it's fantastic to have so young champion … I knew Kimi from five, six years old." He raves over the champion's win from 19th at Monza.

Drivers stepping out of their cars. Craig Slater now with Emerson Fittipaldi, the earliest F1 champion I can remember watching drive. He was once the youngest champion.

Sisyphus's team of marshals sweeping water off the track.

"We just see lots of standing water," comes over the radio.

fears that the next band of rain is in. Things are getting worse, not better.

The safety car is going round, and it doesn't look clever.

Brundle wondering how it will go if sunset approaches. We have a couple of hours to go but a crash might make life difficult. In 2024, qualifying had to be moved to the Sunday morning.