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Lance Stroll's Formula 1 test incident ends Williams's day early

Williams has had to abandon the second day of 2017 Formula 1 testing after just 12 laps due to damage incurred when Lance Stroll went off.

Stroll's FW40 suffered front wing damage in the incident, and the team did not have the parts available to allow him to run again on Tuesday.

Williams's head of performance engineering Rob Smedley said the excursion had done a surprising amount of damage.

"Lance was on lap six of his second run when he had a spin," said Smedley.

"The grip was particularly low, and so he spun and went through the gravel backwards.

"Even though the accident was entirely innocuous we've unfortunately had quite a bit of accident damage, which we're now in the process of repairing."

He hinted at the potential for a delay to the start of Wednesday's running for the team too.

"We're having to send some composite parts back to the factory, which will be back with us at some point tomorrow," said Smedley.

"We're doing the utmost we can now to get back out on track at the earliest opportunity tomorrow.

"We will be able to recover the programme in the coming days."

Though Stroll will in effect lose one of his four days of winter testing in the new car, following his acclimatisation programme with an old FW36, he remained optimistic.

"It is still early days and I have only done a handful of laps," said Stroll.

"I am just getting to grips with the FW40, and there is still a lot of time ahead of us.

"It was good to finally get behind the wheel to just get a feel for it.

"I need to do a lot more running before I know exactly where I am and where the car is at.

"I will have a much better picture once we have more laps under our belts, but it was good to break the ice and I am looking forward to some more running."

Zdroj: autosport.com