This is the horrifying moment that saw a Formula One star crash into an animal while he was on track. 

The driver in question was out on circuit for the first practice session at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola on Friday afternoon. 

However, his run was marred by a collision with a rabbit, which occurred while he was braking on approach to a hairpin. 

After navigating the subsequent chicane, he can be heard saying in distress: 'Oh my God, I... I touched an animal.'

He was then told to return to the pit lane by his race engineer, who wanted him to box immediately after the crash. 

However, he still performed admirably enough in the session to finish in sixth place. 

Speaking to Sky Sports after the session at Imola, Pierre Gasly said: 'It's been a very, very good Friday'.

'From the first lap, I could tell the car was in a much better place than in Miami. I'm glad we managed to answer some of the question marks we had after the last race.

'Obviously, we know from Friday to Saturday, others usually keep a bit more in their pocket, but I think it's quite fair to say it's probably been the best Friday so far this year.'

Gasly added that he 'very sadly' collided with a rabbit that ran out onto the track, which also reportedly damaged his car and impacted his performance for the rest of the session.

'I couldn't tell if it was a small cat or a big rabbit,' he continued.

'It turned out that it was a big rabbit just jumping across the track. I could not avoid it, so I had quite a big impact on the front wing.

'Unfortunately, that was it for the rabbit and [it] also broke the front wing. It was not ideal, but not the end of the session we wanted.' 

The unfortunate accident reportedly caused 'quite a bit of damage' to the floor and front wing of Gasly's Alpine.

However, the Frenchman was still able to put in 21 laps over the course of first practice and recorded a fastest lap of 1:16.696s.

Towards the front of the grid, the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris once again showed their pace as they topped the leaderboards. 

Meanwhile, the British duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished in fourth and fifth respectively. 

In FP2, McLaren once again locked out the front row while Gasly improved on his showing from the first session to finish best of the rest in third place. 

The first European race of the season gets underway at 2pm on Sunday.