The Austrian Grand Prix qualifying was suspended after a fire broke out on the grass, forcing the drivers to return to their garages temporarily.
After Lewis Hamilton ran wide out of the final corner, he ran off-track and ended up with two wheels on the grass.
The Ferrari driver’s car sparked as it hit the ground and caused a fire to appear on the grass.
The session was immediately red flagged and marshals got to work on putting the fire out, while the trip across the grass also led to dirt being pulled onto the track, leading to more clean-up work.
Marshalls had to come and wet the grass to try to prevent more fires
Reuters
Fires on the grass surrounding the circuit have been a major issue over the past few seasons, and it came to a head at the Japanese Grand Prix earlier in the season when there were red flags in two of the three practice sessions due to fires on the grass.
The issue is caused by the titanium skid blocks on the base of the car, while the titanium is light and long-wearing, the number of sparks is causing regular issues in hot conditions.
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The FIA had decided to test new stainless steel skid blocks on the base of the cars for the Spanish Grand Prix, and while it was initially thought the change of material could be implemented at several races this season, the decision was taken to retain the titanium blocks and continue to evaluate the stainless steel.
The question will undoubtedly be asked again about changing out the titanium for a different material as the delay lasted around 20 minutes, from an already delayed start to the session.
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Lewis Hamilton ran wide out of the final corner in Q2
Reuters
The session was initially delayed due to a number of crashes in the earlier Formula 2 sprint race, which saw drivers land upside down after a dramatic crash in the opening laps of the sprint race. This was then followed by a multi-car pile-up on the final lap with cars getting wedged under each other.
Reigning world champion Max Verstappen struggled throughout the early stages of qualifying, telling his team at the start of Q2: "The car is completely undriveable.
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"I have no grip. It's even worse than before.
"I really don't know what to say, like, I have no grip low speed, medium speed, high speed."
Former Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz could not get his Williams out of Q1 with what seemed to be a brake issue.
He said: "We put new brakes for qualifying like we always do but as soon as I got out of the pits, the car was pulling to one side.
"On top of that, I had quite a lot of damage to the floor, which I expected, given how hard the car was to drive.
The bottom of Lewis Hamilton's car sparked as he hit the grass, causing the fire
Getty
"In the end. obviously not happy because too many issues, too many problems and at the end a Q1 exit.
"We'll see tomorrow. Today was not our day; way too many problems again in qualifying and we need to find out why we are experiencing so many problems.
"I've been the fastest of the midfield on race pace, which gives encouragement for tomorrow, but we're definitely starting too far back."
The Spaniard will start tomorrow’s Grand Prix from the back row of the grid.
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