Fabrizio Crestani put himself on top of the timesheets in a rain affected free practice this morning, tiptoeing around in treacherous conditions to post the quickest lap between red flags to lead the session ahead of Esteban Gutierrez and Max Chilton.

The Italian's laptime of 2:23.035 was heavily impacted by the constant rain which fell throughout the session and caused three red flag periods in a session which saw almost every driver spin sometime during the 30 minutes track time.

With substantial standing water being added to continually, the field appeared to be in no hurry to go out on track when the green light came on, but Crestani, James Calado and Julian Leal soon put themselves at the top of the time sheets before Ricardo Teixeira spun at the final corner and beached himself on the kerb seven minutes in, prompting the first red flag period to remove the Rapax from its perch.

When the session restarted Gutierrez soon set the quickest time, albeit with a small spin in the first sector, before Crestani improved his time once again just ahead of Fabio Onidi's spin at turn five, which saw the Italian run wide over the kerbs before being slung back onto the track, bringing out the red flags once again at the seventeen minute mark.

It was only two minutes after the restart that Leal and Victor Guerin spun like synchronised swimmers at the final turn, with the later coming to a halt backwards on the front straight, prompting the final red flag period of the session as the clock wound down to zero.

With so little chance to get any meaningful data from the session, and with conditions unlikely to improve in the few hours remaining, this afternoon's qualifying session promises to be an unmissable spectacle.