Fernando Alonso brought Canadian Grand Prix sprint qualifying to a halt by burying the nose of his Aston Martin into a barrier.
With the two-time F1 champion fighting to get into the second session, Alonso locked up the front-left of his AMR26 on the approach to Turn 3 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
It resulted in Alonso ploughing straight on into a TecPro barrier. With the Spanish driver lying 14th on the timesheet, his message over the team radio was a simple one as he said: “Yeah, sorry. Lock up, mate.”
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 later, Alonso said: “I locked up the front, and there is no room to avoid anything here in Canada. Too much on the limit. We are a little behind with the pace, so we were pushing seven or eight places more than we should have.”
A lengthy delay followed due to repairs to the barrier.
It was the fourth red flag of the day, after three were shown in the sole practice session earlier.
Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson ground to a halt less than 10 minutes in due to a hydraulics failure; Alex Albon crashed his Williams into a wall after hitting and killing a marmot, whilst Haas’ Esteban Ocon also crashed into a wall late on.
Due to the damage sustained to their cars, neither Lawson nor Albon took part in sprint qualifying.
