Lance Stroll isn't to blame for his crash on the third day of Formula 1 pre-season testing according to Williams, but as a result of the incident the team may be forced to withdraw from the fourth day of running due to a lack of spare parts.
Williams was forced to cut short its second day of running after Stroll spun through the gravel at the high-speed Turn 9, damaging the front wing, after just 12 laps.
In a similar identical incident on Wednesday, the Canadian rookie made contact with the tyre wall exiting Turn 5, forcing the team to once again abandon running prematurely.
Stroll had also ended his morning session in the gravel trap shortly after the chequered flag came out to signal the end of running.
Head of performance engineering Rob Smedley admitted that "there’s a question mark" over whether the team can run on Thursday, adding: "but obviously we’ll be doing our utmost to get out".
Smedley said the team didn't blame Stroll for the crash, but rather said it was down to the revised nature of the tyres, which the experienced Felipe Massa even struggled to get to grips with during his run.
"Both drivers have talked a lot about these tyres," he explained, "they’re good to lean on them, but there’s a certain point where they become very tricky.
"Felipe lost the car on his first day because he kind of just stepped away from them having the amount of grip that these new tyres offer and then going into some area of the tyre where they’re no longer very happy.
"It’s just something they’re adapting to, Felipe found it quite tricky on day one. I’ve heard reports from other teams that drivers are pretty much reporting the same thing.
"The feedback on today is Lance was out on cold medium tyres on an out lap, a lot of fuel in the car, and the tyre stepped away from him and he was an innocent victim of that happening.
"What should have been a fairly little, innocuous, sideways moment brought him around into the barrier and there was some damage. But that happens and we expect it to happen. There’s no blame on his part, obviously."
