Albon was furious when he climbed out of his FW46 cockpit, labelling the young Brit an "idiot", blaming him for causing the major spin. Bearman was baffled in his radio communications with the Ferrari garage.

Discussing the incident with Sky Sports F1, Williams team principal James Vowles said: "[We are] frustrated. We need to see what the reasoning was behind it. Alex had to back out of it and lost the car on the apex.

"The car doesn't really step out there. He lifted off because he saw the other car. As long as the chassis is OK, we will be fine for FP2. If the chassis is damaged, it's a bit more significant in terms of time [to repair]."

While Williams were understandably frustrated by the crash, Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok wasn't willing to dump the blame on the man replacing Charles Leclerc for FP1.

"It was a complete misunderstanding there," he said. "Bearman thought, ‘I’m going to move fully out of the way, stay on the right-hand side away from the racing line and slow down’. Alex obviously didn’t expect to see him there, and perhaps when he tried to back out of it, got a snap of oversteer."

This crash comes at the worst possible time for Albon. The 28-year-old's performances are under scrutiny following team-mate Franco Colapinto's jaw-dropping start to life in F1.