The opening practice session for Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix was all but abandoned due to an issue with CCTV that prevented track activity from taking place.
The session began on time at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve but was halted after only four minutes when Alpine’s Pierre Gasly suffered a driveshaft issue.
His A523 came to a halt along the back straight and it was recovered behind the barrier after a few minutes of failed attempts to restart it.
The session then did not resume as an issue with the local CCTV infrastructure around the circuit developed.
Race Control has access to Formula 1’s range of trackside cameras but it also requires CCTV for safety reasons, as CCTV covers other areas such as run-off or behind barriers that are not always covered by F1TV.
The clock continued to run down in the session while local officials worked on resolving the system.
The back-up system in place as a contingency measure also suffered a failure.
Due to the disruption, with effectively only notional running taking place, second practice will begin at 16:30 local time, half an hour earlier than planned.
The session will then last for 90 minutes, 30 minutes longer than usual.
Valtteri Bottas was notionally fastest in the session, posting a time of 1:18.728s, to finish ahead of Aston Martin drivers Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso.
No-one posted more than three timed laps.
