Canadian Grand Prix: First practice bizarrely cancelled after CCTV failure

Add as a preferred source on Google

The first practice of Formula One at the Canadian Grand Prix was embarrassingly cancelled after a CCTV failure at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

In a bizarre circumstance, it was a complete failure of the camera system which led to a promising day ending in a disappointing manner at the race. The opening one-hour running of the weekend was red-flagged after just four minutes when Pierre Gasly broke down in his Alpine.

Only a handful of drivers had posted a lap with Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton and George Russell among those who had not taken to the track.

The running was expected to restart after removing Gasly's Alpine, but F1's governing body, the FIA, blamed "issues with local CCTV infrastructure" for the initial delay.

The suspension in play then became temporary with the FIA confirming at 2.20 pm local time (11.50 pm IST) that the session would not be resumed leaving an estimated 90,000 spectators short-changed.

The FIA said that the concluding running of the day, which was due to start at 5 pm local time (02.30 am IST), would be brought forward to 4.30 pm to allow for 30 minutes more running.

An FIA spokesperson said, "The delay will be longer as the CCTV is not synced correctly and until the issue has been fixed we cannot run on track.

"This system is a local installation and they are continuing to work to resolve the problem. The clock will continue to run down on FP1 and the session will not be extended as there must be two hours between FP1 and FP2."

Former driver Karun Chandhok, who has taken part in 11 grand prix in his career and now works as a pundit for Sky Sports, criticized FIA for cancelling the race.

"I feel we needed to get on track," said Chandhok.

"I would argue that there's races around the world where they haven't got CCTV cameras and they rely on marshal posts to radio incidents in - then you can use the TV cameras to look at it," he added.