Perez came together with Kevin Magnussen, which speared him heavily into the barrier as they climbed Beau Rivage for the first time.

The impact left the Red Bull Racing car with just one wheel, the other three rear and front wings were torn off and littered across the track.

Magnussen had been partially alongside Perez as the Mexican eased right out of Sainte Devote, the touch turning him into the wall and ultimately tagging Nico Hulkenberg in the process.

The red flag was immediately shown, with Carlos Sainz stopped with a puncture at Casino Square.

Just prior to the red flag, the Alpine pair of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon came together at Portier, Ocon being launched as they made wheel-to-wheel contact.

Under the red flag, Charles Leclerc leads from Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, and George Russell. Daniel Ricciardo remains 12th.

The FIA confirmed it will be a standard restart procedure, once the race does resume with repairs to the barrier required.

It subsequently confirmed Leclerc would take the restart from pole ahead of Piastri, while Sainz would be reinstated in third ahead of Norris, Russell, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon, Gasly, Ocon, Lance Stroll, Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso, Logan Sargeant, Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu.

Magnussen was also cleared of any wrongdoing with officials noting that no further investigation of the Turn 1 incident was necessary – a welcome development for the Dane, who is one incident away from a race ban.

At McLaren, work was being carried out on Oscar Piastri’s car, the team confirming to Speedcafe that he sustained floor and sidepod damage in the opening corner skirmish with Sainz.

The squad was able to replace his sidepod and was working to patch up his floor as best they could ahead of the 15:44 restart.