Lewis Hamilton crashed out of final practice for the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid.
The seven-time world champion lost control of his Ferrari under braking for the final corner and hit the barriers.
Hamilton was able to reverse out of the tyre wall and attempted to complete a full lap back to the pits, ignoring multiple instructions from his team to park his broken car.
“Stop the car,” said Hamilton’s race engineer Carlo Santi. “Car is going,” Hamilton replied, with his damaged front wing lodged under the front-right of his machine.
Santi was back on the radio again. “Stop in the safest place possible,” he said.
Hamilton replied: “If I can make it back I will and if I can’t I will stop safely.”
Sanit said: “We have a puncture on the front. Stop the car.”
open image in gallery“I can see that,” said Hamilton in response as he continued against his team’s wishes in attempting to get back to his garage.
After completing two thirds of the lap, Hamilton eventually pulled over to the side of the track. Hamilton emerged from his car which was taken back to the pits on a flat-bed truck.
Hamilton was on course to set the quickest lap of the session so far prior to his accident.
After a lengthy delay, the running restarted before Ollie Bearman also fell victim to the Madring.
The British driver spun out at turn 10 and slammed into the barrier sustaining heavy damage to the left-hand side of his Haas.
Bearman was uninjured in the high-speed crash but his mechanics will face a race against time to repair his car for qualifying which gets under way at 16:00 local tine (15:00 BST).
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli set the fastest time, 0.166 seconds clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris third and fourth respectively for McLaren.
Max Verstappen finished fifth, a place clear of George Russell, who was seven tenths slower than Mercedes team-mate Antonelli.