Race and classic pictures

Bad break for Senna at Silverstone

Poor Bruno Senna won't be taking part in this weekend's Six Hours at Silverstone FIA World Endurance Championship race after all

The Brazilian was involved in a practice accident on Friday at Copse. The #1 R13-Gibson suffered damage to the front and rear in the accident, which caused a 30 minute red flag in the opening session.

Although he initially climbed out of the car unaided and appeared uninjured, checks at the medical centre revealed that he had suffered a fracture to his ankle.

"[Bruno] was taken to the Silverstone circuit medical center," the Rebellion Racing team said in a tweet. "Following his accident in Free Practice 1, the Brazilian driver has a foot fracture and will not drive this weekend. All Team REBELLION wish him a good recovery!"

"The blow was very strong," said Senna himself. "I was afraid I had broken my femur, but the monocoque resisted it should be fixed for final practice and qualifying. I suffered practically nothing just a little pain in the hip area.”

Alonso disenchanted with F1's 'poor on-track action'

He's since been seen hobbling around the paddock on crutches and wearing a protective soft boot on the afflicted limb.

It means he is ruled out of taking part in this weekend's race and his teammates Neel Jani and Andre Lotterer will have to tackle as a duo instead.

However Fernando Alonso will definitely be in action on Saturday's qualifying session, along with his Toyota Gazoo team mates Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima. The #8 TS050 Hybrid is one of the favourites for pole position for this weekend's race.

This is the trio's first outing since their victory at the 24 Hours at Le Mans on June. It handed Alonso the second leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, leaving just the Indianapolis 500 on his to-do list.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.