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F1 was left at the mercy of a bitterly frustrating CCTV issue that wrecked the first practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix.
The hour-long outing was eventually called off with 10 minutes remaining due to the CCTV woe that emerged shortly after a red flag had been shown to retrieve the stricken Alpine of Pierre Gasly.
The session was less than four minutes old when Gasly’s car ground to a halt.
Despite attempts to get his A523 going again, Gasly was forced to throw in the towel and allow marshals to come to his rescue.
That soon sparked a red flag so his car could be safely retrieved, with team principal Otmar Szafnauer suggesting the problem was due to the fact the clutch had disengaged and could not be re-engaged.
The hiatus was expected to be a short one, to such an extent that Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell made their way to the end of the pit lane in anticipation of the session swiftly resuming.
Embarrassingly, a few minutes later, team mechanics were forced to recover the W14s and wheel them back down the pit lane and into the garages.
Explaining the situation, a Mercedes spokesperson said: “Both cars headed to the end of the pit lane, but then a problem in race control meant the circuit was not reopened while it is resolved.
“This issue was only communicated when the cars reached the end of the pit lane, so we brought the cars back as they would have lost any useful tyre temperature.”
As the clock continued to count down, it became apparent there was a bigger issue at play as Gasly’s Alpine had long since been moved out of the way and was no longer a concern.
After 19 minutes, an FIA spokesperson finally revealed the session restart was “delayed due to issues with the local CCTV infrastructure around the circuit.”
He added: “The local organisers are working to resolve the issue and until that time we can’t restart for safety reasons.”
During the extended delay, Gasly’s Alpine was finally able to be removed and craned onto the back of a flatbed truck and returned to the Alpine garage.
Shortly after, the FIA made an additional announcement.
It read: “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 won’t be extended as there must be two hours between FP1 and FP2.
“We are looking at options to extend FP2.”
The FIA later then confirmed that FP1 would not resume, and in turn FP2 would be extended by 30 minutes.
A statement 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 (2130 BST; 0630 AEST).
In the five minutes of running that did take place, the majority of the drivers managed to complete three laps.
It left Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas with the honour of being quickest, albeit with a relatively unrepresentative time of one minute 18.728s, followed by local hero Lance Stroll in his Aston Martin, and team-mate Fernando Alonso.
