The third and final day of Formula One’s pre-season testing in Bahrain on Friday was briefly halted in farcical circumstances when a bus drove onto an exposed access road at the Sakhir circuit.
Red flags were waved by marshals at 3.07pm local time (12.07pm GMT) when the white bus suddenly appeared driving the wrong way down an access road around the outside of turn 10 as cars were lapping the circuit.
It took just minutes for the track to clear, with the afternoon session resuming at 3.11pm.
But the incident is sure to raise alarm bells, given the potential for disaster had a car gone off track at that point.
It also added to a growing list of unusual incidents to have occurred at this test, with the first day’s running on Wednesday stopped for over an hour by a paddock-wide power cut caused by a “local substation failure”.
Earlier on Friday, shattered glass on the pit-straight brought out another red flag.
A spokesperson for the FIA said: “The red flag this afternoon was for an unauthorised vehicle. It was not on the track, but on the service road. However, it was unprotected by barriers and we did not know where it was going.”
Asked whether an investigation would take place into how it had been allowed to reach that point, and to prevent similar incidents from happening again in the future, the spokesperson added: “Every track incident is thoroughly looked into and we’re sure feedback will be shared with the relevant stakeholders and the appropriate actions taken.”
Lewis Hamilton, who is driving for new team Ferrari, had not yet had the chance to record a time in the final session when the bus incident occurred. But he was quickly out after the track cleared, going third quickest behind Mercedes’ George Russell and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.
On Thursday, Hamilton had said he was “really enjoying” his new car. “We’re slowly bonding,” said the 40 year-old. “Yesterday [Wednesday] was a so-so day, just OK. But we got through all our run-plan. I was not doing set-up changes or directing where I want the car to go.
“Today was a bit more getting to explore a bit my interaction with my engineer.”
