First Practice Session at Azerbaijan Grand Prix Cancelled After Track Incident

The first practice session at the 2019 Azerbaijan Formula One Grand Prix was cancelled on Friday after George Russell's Williams car was severely damaged.

The session had barely started when Russell hit a manhole cover on the street circuit in Baku, and the debris from the body of his car drew a red flag:

Forumla One provided footage of the incident:

The crane of the recovery truck that collected Russell's car from the track then hit a bridge as it was returning the Williams to the pits and started dripping oil on the car:

The decision was taken to abandon the session so the debris could be cleared and every manhole cover on the circuit could be checked to ensure they were properly sealed:

Williams' deputy team principal Claire Williams explained their was heavy damage to the car, per Niamh Lewis of BBC Sport:

"I haven't had a chat with George yet, the car has got a lot of damage. We have to wait to see, what the damage is—it's taken the whole underside out and the circuit needs to make sure the covers are down properly and that means we could be out this afternoon because of that. I will be picking it up with race control."

Only two cars had set a time before the session was stopped.

Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel had posted times of one minute, 47.497 seconds and 1:49.598, respectively.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton took to Instagram after the incident:

The Englishman leads this year's world championship by six points from his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas and was the winner in Baku last year.