From GMM

The availability of a 'monsoon'-type rain tyre might avoid future cancellations of track sessions due to extreme weather.

That is the belief of Sam Michael, one of the millions of witnesses to the tedious spectacle of Saturday's delayed and ultimately postponed qualifying hour at Suzuka.

The FIA refused to show the green light due to the torrential rain and feedback from the drivers about rivers of streaming water causing dangerous aquaplaning.

"You'd maybe only use them (monsoon tyres) once every three years, but at least you'd have something," said Michael, technical director at the British team Williams.

He said the monsoon tyres would ideally have an extreme tread depth of more than 10mm, useful only for avoiding the sort of situation seen in Japan.

"It's not good to go through an hour of television where everyone's just watching people float little boats down the pitlane," said the Australian.

"The cost of having a set of monsoon tyres for each car is pretty low compared to that."

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton's bad weekend at Suzuka and fading championship chances got even worse on Saturday night.

The 2008 world champion learned he will have to move five places down the grid, whose order will be determined by an unusual Sunday morning qualifying session.

McLaren confirmed it detected "abnormal gearbox oil pressure" on Hamilton's MP4-25 during the Saturday morning practice session.

"As we fired up Lewis's car several times in preparation for qualifying, we became aware that the symptoms were worse than we'd originally diagnosed," a team spokesman, revealing that the gearbox had to be changed out of sequence, said.