Williams will seek compensation for the damage caused to George Russell’s FW42 car by a loose drain cover in opening practice ꦉfor the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Friday.

Russel❀l struck the loose manhole cover on the run between Turn 2 an🅠d Turn 3 early in FP1 at the Baku City Circuit, leaving the underside of his car with s🦄ignificant damage and crཧacking the chassis.

The issue forced Williams to switch Russell to its spare chassis, ruling him out of second practic🦂e on Friday ✤afternoon, and acted as another setback for the beleaguered team after a difficult start to ꧃the seaᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚson.

“It never rains but it pours this year,” deputy team boss Claire Williams told Sky Sports F1.

“It could have been worse than it was.Aa drain cover coming off like that💮 could have done a lot more damage.

"George is fine and that’s the most important thing, and the FIA are clearly takingౠ it incredibly seriously and making sure every one of those manhole covers is checked and bolted down as they should be.

“But unfortunately it’s clearly done a huge amount of d𓆏amage to our car. It’s destroyed our floor, and has cracked our chassis.

“It’s not beyond repair, but we can’t repair it here, so we’re going to ha🐎ve to deploy chassis three here for George. That means he misses FP2 this afternoon but he’ll get out tomorrow in FP3.”

While Williams would not be drawn on the exact cost of the damage to the car, she said it was “in the hu𒐪ndreds of thousands”, and that the team would be seeking compensation given its lack of blame for the incident.

“Clearly we’re going to have to be talking to them about 𝔍that,” Williams confirmed.

“We’re an independent team, and we hav♒e a very strict budget to control. Things like this, you can’t anticipate. Nobody can, I understand that, but there clearly should be some recompense.

“I know there is a precedent. Haas I believe were compensated after it happened to them i༺n Sepang a few years ago, so clearly we’re going to be talking to them.

“But we can’t put a number on it at the moment.”

Haas managed to receive compensation from the Sepang International Circuit after a loose drain cover caused Romain Grosj🦹ean to have a high-speed crash in practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2017. However, the case took al🅘most a year to be settled.

Baku officials said the loose manhole cover had been caused by an "undetectable prob🌌lem", which FIA race director Michael Masi said related to one of the underground clamps holding it down.

More than 300 manhole covers were checked around the circuit before the re🍷sumption of running in Baku, with Formula 2 qualifying being delayed by half an hour as a result.