Williams’s FW44 caught fire during the morning session of pre-season testing in Bahrain.
A red flag brought things to a halt when the back of Nicholas Latifi’s Williams began emitting flames.
Both rear brakes started overheating as the Canadian driver made it back to turn 1 but as he continued his run, he spun off track and the flames grew.
Proceedings resumed thirty minutes later, however, the team has yet to reemerge from the pits but it has reassured fans that the issue was minor – despite how dramatic it looked.
A spokesperson released a statement saying: “From initial investigations, it appears that the issue that caused the fire was quite minor, but became visibly quite dramatic.
“It is not as severe as the video footage might suggest, but there is fire damage to the rear of the car that the team need to repair.
“We’ll revise our running plan once we have assessed the repair work that needs to be carried out.”
Latifi’s teammate Alex Albon weighed in on the incident as it happened, and he told Sky Sports: “My initial feeling was how did he spin, but it looks like the rear left snapped as he was overheating.”
“I hope it’s just the tyre.
“It could be the rear (brake) drums that shattered after the explosion.”
