What a scare the pilot and the commissioner who came to his aid had!
Canadian Nicholas Latifi led the first red flag of the penultimate day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain Circuit after his car caught fire. Both the driver and the marshals who came to extinguish the fire got a huge scare, since the left rear tire suddenly exploded.
Latifi noticed that something was wrong with his car when he saw in the rear view mirror how a lot of smoke was coming from the rear of the Williams FW44. When he tried to return to the box, the Canadian driver suffered a spin and had to get out of the car, from which a large smoke continued to come out in the area of the brakes.
Once the driver was out of the car, the stewards approached to put out the fire, although they took too long and when they did, one of the tires burst. The commissioner who had the fire extinguisher in his hand at that moment got a huge scare, but fortunately there was no personal injury. Even Latifi helped extinguish the fire.
Latifi’s Williams… ON FIRE! 🔥Fire in the rear brake discs that she made even one of the tires burst 😨🚩 Red flag! #F1Testing 🏁 pic.twitter.com/z220yhwdfd
— DAZN Spain (@DAZN_ES) March 11, 2022
The single-seater, badly damaged at the rear, was transferred to the Grove team’s box and there the British team’s operators began to work to repair it. Unfortunately, Williams was unable to return to the track, neither with Latifi nor with Albon, who was left without shooting on this penultimate day of practice. In total, the car only did 12 laps.
Today’s was a testing session with numerous interruptions due to multiple mechanical problems, but fortunately there were no accidents to regret and the various red flags didn’t last too long.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the action will resume at the Sakhir track for the last day of testing before the start of the 2022 F1 season.
