WATCH: Favourite Verstappen crawls to a halt in Free Practice 2 at Imola

Max Verstappen might have been considered the favourite by many going into the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend, but his first day of running at Imola took a hit when Verstappen was forced to pull up his Red Bull RB16B with a mechanical issue midway through Free Practice 2.

Verstappen had just negotiated the final Rivazza sequence during FP2 when a mechanical ‘clunk’ alerted him to an issue on the car – with the Dutchman telling his team: “Something snapped on the rear… something broke.”

LIVE COVERAGE: Follow all the action from second practice in Imola

Verstappen pulled his car up at the end of the pit lane and walked dejectedly back to the Red Bull garage – with the RB16B eventually recovered there too. But with the car unable to be repaired before the session end, Verstappen would have been cursing the high cost to his Friday running – particularly in the shortened 60-minute FP2 sessions of 2021.