Paul Di Resta's Italian Grand Prix ended up being short and sweet, but it did produce an extraordinary piece of footage when the Scot crashed during lap one.

The Force India driver had a thermal imaging camera on his car during the race—the camera had already thrown up plenty of interesting images during the race weekend, but none quite so striking as this.

In a topsy-turvy first lap in Monza, Di Resta was jostling for position and had a momentary lapse of concentration as he broke for the turn, hitting Lotus driver Romain Grosjean.

As Di Resta explained in quotes picked up by Crash.Net:

I just got caught out going into the second chicane because the cars ahead of me got backed up. I guess they were reacting to the tussle going on ahead of them, [but] I locked both fronts trying to stop the car and ended up hitting Grosjean. Unfortunately, it was too late to take avoiding action. 


Formula 1 fans are used to seeing crashes, but this certainly provides a fresh perspective. 

Its purple/orange/grey colour scheme is so other-worldly that it almost seems as if it's come straight out of a video game.

Let's hope the thermal camera gets more time to shine in future.