Liam Lawson triggered a costly red flag in the opening part of practice ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.
A red flag was flown just 12 minutes into the session after Lawson came to a halt on the exit of Turn 2 following a potential hydraulics issue with his Racing Bulls car.
Initially, a virtual safety car was activated, although a red flag became necessary to safely remove Lawson’s car from the circuit.
It represents a major blow for Lawson, with the Canadian GP being a Sprint weekend. As a result, he will receive no further practice time before sprint qualifying.
Fortunately, the red flag does not act as a setback for the entire field, due to the session being extended by four minutes. Franco Colapinto almost caused another stoppage even earlier in the session.
Colapinto crawled back to the pit lane just five minutes into the session after losing throttle response, but managed to avoid stopping on track.
He was forced to jump out of the car though after Alpine wheeled it into the garage, before confirming that it was investigating a hardware-related power unit issue.
