Formula 1 Practice Canceled by Closed Circuit TV Problems

The first Canadian Grand Prix practice session at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Friday was green for all of five minutes before being canceled, the result of a strange IT problem. An issue with the closed-circuit television network used by stewards to keep eyes on every corner of the track was the culprit, greatly decreasing available track times for teams that have largely showed up to the weekend's race with freshly upgraded cars.

Officials noticed the CCTV issue just after the practice began. Since organizers need those cameras to determine if the track is actually open for safe full-speed running, that led to a delay. Eventually, the delay turned into a full cancelation of the session, which had only run long enough for teams to run a single install lap. Nobody ran a lap at race pace, and no single team left the data-gathering session with any more data than they had before the practice session actually began.

That's a major issue for teams like Aston Martin and Williams, which came to Canada with upgrades they hoped would bring them closer to Red Bull at the front of the field. With in-season testing heavily regulated to the point that it is all but banned, these practice sessions mark vital chances to see those upgrades at work in real-world scenarios planned in advance by teams for the three sessions of available track time.

Teams have been given an additional thirty minutes in the next session, but that second practice is set to run later in the day. At that point, a higher chance of rain risks washing out the whole session and leaving teams without a single lap of useful data ahead of tomorrow's final practice and qualifying sessions.

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