Toro Rosso duo regret first lap mayhem

Bourdais ploughed into the back Buemi exiting the second corner of the race at Barcelona after the Swiss driver had slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting Jarno Trulli's spinning Toyota.

"All I know is that I was exiting turn two, accelerating as normal," he told BBC TV. "Then I saw the cars in front of me stopping pretty much and I didn't even have time to react.

"I could hardly brake and I ended up hitting my team-mate, jumped over him and it was all over. It was a pretty big hit and I thought I was going to roll over."

Buemi said that the collision with Bourdais came as something of a surprise, following a poor getaway.

"I didn't have such a good start [Kimi] Raikkonen and Heikki overtook me into the first corner," the Formula 1 rookie said.

"Exiting the first corner Trulli spun and I had to brake hard to avoid him. Bourdais didn't see me and he just went over my car. There's not much to say. I just stayed in and I saw his tyre go over my head. That's more or less it."

Also eliminated in the collision were Trulli and Adrian Sutil's Force India, who collided a few yards further up the road.

Sutil said: "It just hit my car and I had to stop, suspension broken. I couldn't really do anything about it. It was just one of those racing incidents. It's the first corner, very tight."