Spielberg, Jul 11 (IANS): The third practice session of the Styrian Grand Prix has been cancelled due to torrential rain at the Red Bull Ring. The third free practice session was initially postponed indefinitely while an F3 Feature race was red flagged on Saturday morning.

"After consultation and recommendation of the FIA Formula One Safety Delegate the stewards decide that the Formula One Free Practice 3 will be cancelled due to the inclement weather and safety reasons in accordance with Art. 2.1.6.a and 11.9.3.m of the FIA International Sporting Code," announced the race stewards.

Plans are to hold qualifying on Saturday afternoon local time if conditions improve but it can be held on Sunday morning too.

"There's lots of options to put it simply. If a worst-case scenario was to come about, we've already had a look and qualifying could take place on Sunday morning," said FIA Race Director Michael Masi.

"If we had a complete washout on Saturday, free practice three and qualifying didn't take place and hypothetically qualifying couldn't happen on Sunday morning because of weather, we would revert back to free practice two times.

"Or there's the third iteration, which is free practice three can happen but we can't have qualifying in the afternoon or qualifying Sunday morning and the grid would highly likely be set on the free practice three times."

If the grid for Sunday's race -- which is set to be warm and dry -- were to be defined on FP2 times, Max Verstappen would start on pole position, ahead of Valtteri Bottas, with Racing Point's Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll locking out the second row.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton would start sixth, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel down in 16th and Renault's Daniel Ricciardo last after he crashed in FP2.