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

Russell struck the loose manhole cover on the run between Turn 2 and Turn 3 early in FP1 at the Baku City🦩 Circuit, leaving the underside of his car with signi𒁏ficant damage and cracking the chassis.

The issue forced Williams to switch Russell to its spare chassis, ruling him out of 𝔍second practic🌺e on Friday afternoon,♎ and acted as another setback for the beleaguered team after a difficult start to the season.

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

“It could hav♈e 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 taking it incredibly seriously and𒁃 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 damage to our car. It’s destroyed our 💜floor, and has cracked our chassis.

“It’s not beyond repair, but we ღcan’t repair it here, so we’re going to have 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 hundreds🧸 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 that,🌌” Williams confirmed.

“We’re an independent team, and w🔴e have 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 in Sepang a f🅺ew years ago, so clearly we’re g𓆉oing 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 Grosjean to have a high-speed crash in practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix iꦗn 2017. However, the case took almost a yea🌠r to be settled.

Baku officials said the l꧋oose manhole cover had been caused by an "undetectable problem"🌺, 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 resumption of running in Baku, with Formula 2 qua𒁃lifying being delayed by half an hour as a result.