Red flag in F1 testing; Mercedes, Ferrari inspect damage from loose drain cover
Preseason testing in Bahrain red-flagged after a loose drain cover damages Charles Leclerc♎'🔜s Ferrari
Mercedes and Ferrari inspected damage to their cars from a loose drain cover which caused a red flag on Thursday in F1 preseason testing in Bahrain.
The morning session was ended after a lengthy 🔴delay due to the bizarre incident which brought back memories of last season's F1 🍃Las Vegas Grand Prix chaos.
Ferrari confirmed: "Following Charles Leclerc’s accident this morning, when he 🦩drove over a drain cover, the floor was damaged and we have now changed it."
On Thursday in Bahrain, it initially appeared that the red flag was due to debris from 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes on Day 2 of testing.
Debris 🌳could be seen flying into th༺e air - either from his car or from the track.
ౠBut the issue was quickly ide💝ntified as a drain cover on the approach to Turn 11.
A track inspection was required as work was carried out on🍸 the damaged kerb.
Mercedes' Hamilton and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc's Ferrari had bot𓂃h driven over the damaged📖 area of track.
Ferrari put the shutters up inside the garage as they inspected the damage to Leclerc's car, an early sign that ❀they were removing the all-important floor.
Mercedes' staff could be seen close༺ly inspecting Hamilton's car too🥀.
Memories from Las Vegas!
The remarkable scene on Thursday in Bahrain was similar to the drama at the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix last yea♔r.
Ferra♛ri's Carlos Sainz drove over a loose drain cover on the brand-new track during practi🐻ce.
Fr🐼ed Vasseur ꧟was left fuming as Ferrari counted the cost of the incident that was not their fault.
Rival F1 teams even agr🐽eed that a rule-change was required because Ferrari did not deserve to be punished for an issꦯue which was outside of their control.
Leclerc fastest on Thursday morning
Ferrari's Leclerc went fastest in the morniℱng session of F1 Bahrain preseason testing on Thursday, which was shortened due to the track i🃏ssue.
His best time was 1m31.750s.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri was second, and Williams' Logan Sar♑geant w🧔as third.
Notably, Red Bull had to busily fix a brake fire to Sergi💛o Perez's RB20.
Perez's brakes caught fire as he ret🉐urned to the pits but were quickly put out by Red Bull engineers.
Hamilton was in action for Mercedes foꦛr the first ti൲me in Bahrain.
✃James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from Americanജ sports, to football, to F1.
