DRS problem caused Massa's FP1 crash

Felipe Massa's heavy crash during FP1 for the Canadian Grand Prix was caused by a DRS problem, Williams has confirmed.

Early in the session, Massa lost control approaching Turn 1, causing him to take to the grass in the braking area. With the Williams pitched into a spin, Massa slid backwards into the tyre barrier and heavily damaged the rear of his car.

The Brazilian took to team radio after the crash to say: "I think I had a problem, I closed the DRS and lost the rear completely".

Williams has now confirmed the incident was caused by a problem with Massa's DRS, which did not close fully under braking for Turn 1.

Massa's team-mate Valtteri Bottas had no such problems during the opening session and was able to complete the most mileage of any driver as Williams attempted to compensate for the lost data in FP1.

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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.