Nicholas Latifi faced an early end to the second day of pre-season testing when his Williams went up in flames, causing him to spin and extricate immediately on Friday in Bahrain.
Latifi's Friday morning running had previously been interrupted when a piece of his floor broke off on the main straight, and when he emerged it was all going smoothly – until smoke started billowing from his rear brakes.
LIVE: Coverage from Day 2 of the Official Pre-Season Test in Bahrain
The Canadian attempted to limp the car back to the pits but the smoke turned to fire and soon he spun to a halt at Turn 12, getting out immediately, and brandishing a fire extinguisher to help the marshals deal with the incident midway through the morning session.
“From initial investigations, it appears that the issue that caused the fire was quite minor, but became visibly quite dramatic,” Williams said on a social media. “It is not as severe as the video footage might suggest, but there is fire damage to the rear of the car that the team need to repair.”
Watch how the first red flag emerged on Day 2 in Bahrain in the video player above.
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