The first free practice of the Canadian Grand Prix was sunk by a technical error. The practice that was almost completely blocked by the red flag will be replaced by the second free practice.
It all started with the suspension of Pierre Gasly. On the first lap of FP1 in Montreal, the Alpine rider had a clutch problem and, unable to find a solution, stopped at the side of the track. The FIA boycotted the circuit and raised the red flag, which, despite a successful rescue, has remained in force throughout the practice session since then.
The FIA had previously indicated that there was a problem with the local industrial camera network, and for safety reasons, it was not possible to restart until local residents solved the problem. More details were later revealed in a statement.
“The first free practice segment will take longer because the synthetic camera is not synchronized properly and until the issue is resolved, the circuit cannot continue. The system is a local installation and track management continues to work on the issue.”
They wrote.
At the same time, it was pointed out that there is no way to compensate for the track time by canceling the first free practice, since according to the rules at least 150 minutes must pass between the first and second practice. As a result, the FIA and Formula 1 aim to cancel the second free practice session.
The FIA tribunal quickly decided that the second practice session would last 90 minutes instead of 60 minutes as originally planned. In practical terms, all this means that training, which begins at 10:30 pm Hungarian time, will continue until midnight.
The camera system wasn’t the only problem in Montreal. the Motorsport According to his report, there were also problems with power supply, thanks to the difference between the European and American grids. When the teams started preparing the first practice tires using European standard wheel warmers, the system had to switch from 60 to 50 Hz, causing the system to cut out. The teams then had to heat up the tires using generators.
Since the industrial camera system runs on a different network, this glitch is theoretically unrelated to the error that caused the free training to stop.
