Williams Martini Racing‘s Felipe Massa suffered a high speed accident at Turn 1 during the first Free Practice session of the 2016 Canadian Grand Prix weekend, briefly bringing the session to a halt as marshals cleared away the stricken car.
The Brazilian had been setting the pace during the session which had been going for 25 minutes. Luckily despite the high speed nature of the crash, the F1 veteran was uninjured after losing control of his car as the right-rear wheel touched on to the grass under braking, pitching him into the barriers and out of the session.
While the cause of the accident was unclear to start with, Massa told the team on the radio “I think I had a problem, because I cancelled the DRS and I lost the rear completely.”
https://twitter.com/F1/status/741275890907250688
The team would later confirm that the DRS didn’t fully close causing Massa to lose the rear wing under braking.
Massa is no stranger to an accident at Turn 1 of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve having lost out to Sergio Perez in 2014 when fighting for the final podium position. This is also the third time in as many Grand Prix that he has suffered issues having spun in Spain and crashing in Monaco.
The session was stopped for a total of twelve minutes as the car was brought back to the pits on a low-loader. The team will now work hard to prepare the car for the second practice session later today.
See a video of the crash here on the official Formula 1 website.
