Singapore Grand Prix chaos ensues as fire causes mayhem in the pit lane

Alex Albon's Williams machine caught fire just minutes into the first practice session at the Singapore Grand Prix. The Thai-British driver's car suffered a rear brake issue, which left team engineers fighting to put out the plumes of smoke.

Albon arrived in Singapore seeking to avenge a frustrating weekend in Baku. While Williams team-mate Carlos Sainz clinched the first podium of James Vowles' team principal tenure, the 29-year-old was classified down in 13th place. His hopes of scoring points came unstuck when he crashed at Turn One during the first part of qualifying.

However, his preparations were heavily disrupted during FP1 at the Marina Bay street circuit. He pulled into the pit lane with the rear of his FW47 machine ablaze, and when he stopped in his box, smoke started billowing from the back of the car. This remained the case for three minutes, with Albon forced to block the smoke from getting into his eyes.

Explaining the issue to Sky Sports F1 viewers, pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz said: "I've got confirmation from Williams about Albon's problem, and they're saying that it was actually a hardware problem on the rear brakes.

"So there was a problem with the calliper binding on... they've had this with Sainz, haven't they, earlier on. Do you remember Austria, with the rear brakes? I'm not saying it is the same thing, but they have had a hardware problem with the rear brakes before this season.

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"What they seem to be saying is that it wasn't a brake-by-wire failure that was not allowing the rear brakes to be slowed down, or rather, the rear axle to be slowed down by the ERS system, the MGU-K, and that just led the rears to overheat because they were doing too much work. What they're saying is that there seems to be an actual hardware problem with the rear brakes themselves."

Albon's issue brought his FP1 session to a premature end, but Williams confirmed that their driver would be back in action in the second Friday practice outing.

"And Williams have also confirmed Albon is out for FP1," Kravitz confirmed from the Marina Bay pit lane. "But they are confident they can fix the problem and get him out for FP2. Not a lot lost in terms of relevant track conditions, but a lot lost in terms of getting your eye in on the circuit."