The opening practice session at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix ended twelve minutes in after ROKiT Williams Racing’s George Russell ran over a loose drain cover and heavily damaged the underside of his FW42 racer at the Baku City Circuit forcing FP1 to be stopped.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc appeared to have driven over the cover and dislodged it with his SF90, then Russell’s FW42 Williams ran over it himself at high speed afterwards, heavily damaging the floor and causing debris to scatter in dramatic fashion before quickly bringing the car to a stop.

Race Control permanently red flagged the session to assess the problem and check that all the drains on the 6.003km circuit were properly welded down with barely any running completed from the field.

Formula 1’s program has now become hugely condensed from three to two practice sessions ahead of Saturday’s Qualifying.

“I got the biggest smack through my body, the whole engine turned off, it’s ruined the floor and I’m a bit worried for the chassis now,” Russell explained to Sky Sports F1. “The session won’t be going green until it’s sorted. We were on the normal racing line and it’s completely ruined our session. It’s not what we need at this stage.”

Only Ferrari duo Sebastian Vettel and Leclerc posted lap times before the session was red flagged with the Scuderia testing new upgrades brought to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.

World Champions Mercedes were the only team not to run an installation lap with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.

In another bizarre incident, the recovery truck retrieving the halted Williams had problems of it’s own, firstly, it’s crane smacking into a bridge as it made it’s way back to the pit-lane and leaked oil all over the car as they waited to unload it at the Grove-based squad’s garage.

Free Practice 2 is due to begin in two hours and ten minutes.

Formula 1 Socar Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2019 Free Practice 1 Classification

Note – session ended early for track repairs after loose drain cover caused damage to Russell’s Williams