Felipe Massa says a failure with his DRS mechanism was the cause of his c𒐪rash in the opening free practice session in Canada an❀d Williams is investigating the cause of the fault.

The Brazilian driver lost control of the rear of his car under braking for turn🐲 one with television repla💧ys showing the rear wheels sliding just before the drag reduction system wing flap shut at the end of the start/finish straight.

With Massa a passenger he slid into the crash barriers and suffered heavy damage t🌠o the rear of his car with both rear wheels, rear wing and exhaust system being ripped off.

"The accident was nothing to do with me, it was a problem with the rear wing, the DRS," Massa said. "When I braked I even switched it ꦓoff myself before the braking zone, but it didn't clos♏e so when I braked the DRS was almost 100% open and I had no grip on the rear so that is why I crashed."

Williams is running a new rear wing for the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend and is analysing the failure. Massa missed the remainder of the first practice session but♏ was able to enjoy a full FP2 in which he finished 13th fastest.

"It's a shame because🐟 crashing like that at the beginning of the day is definitely a pain for everybody, for the team, for me as well," he said. "The afternoon was OK, for sure I didn't have everything we can have in the car for the performance in the afternoon because of the crash.

"I am really loo✅king forward that tomorrow everything will be in the car and 🌞we can be competitive. The car showed reasonably good pace straight away so I think that's positive and I hope it can be even more positive for tomorrow."