A motorist drove off from a Rabat fuel station with the refuelling pipe still attached to her car, footage uploaded to Facebook by the station owner shows.

No serious damage was caused because the pipe's connection is flexible, in view of such eventualities. The driver reversed when she realised what had happened, Mario Camilleri said in a Facebook post. It is not known what prompted the driver to drive away in the first place.

It is an event which has happened before to the most professional of drivers.

In 2008, Ferrari driver Felipe Massa drove out of his pit with a fuel line attached to his car. He stopped at the end of the pit lane and mechanics rushed to pull the hose off, but the delay cost him the race, and possibly the championship that year.