Picture Credit: Twitter

Picture Credit: Twitter

On June 16, Friday, the Free Practice One session for the Canadian GP began on time at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. But just four minutes into the session, the French driver Pierre Gasly had a driveshaft issue in his Alpine car. His A523 broke down at the back straight as the red flag was shown on the circuit. The car was recovered behind the barrier after a few failed attempts at restart.

But, then, the FP1 session did not resume as the F1 officials found an issue with the local CCTV infrastructure around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. It was understood that the session was abandoned because race control didn’t have access to CCTV in the run-off or behind the barriers, which aren’t covered by F1TV all the time. Although, they did have access to the trackside cameras of F1.

Later on, FIA, the governing body of Formula One World Championship, released a statement to extend the FP2 by 30 minutes to cover for the lost time in FP1. It read, “In accordance with Article 11.9.3.o of the FIA International Sporting Code, having received a request from the clerk of the course and in the interests of safety, we hereby modify the official programme of the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix by extending the duration of Free Practice Session 2 by 30 minutes.”

“Free Practice Session 2 will now start at 1630hrs (2130hrs BST).”

“The tyres required to be returned after Free Practice 1 in accordance with Article 30.5 of the Formula One Sporting Regulations, should now be returned no later than two hours after Free Practice 2,” FIA added.

Notably, in the four minutes during the FP1 session, only 12 drivers were able to set a lap time in the Canadian GP. Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo came first, ahead of Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, who finished in second and third place respectively. The British pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were unable to go out of the pits to have an exploratory lap of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in their Mercedes cars.