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Crash 'won't hamper' Ricciardo

The ISR team is confident that driver Daniel Ricciardo can compete for victory in this afternoon's Formula Renault 3.5 race at Spa, despite his frightening high speed spin at Eau Rouge in qualifying

Ricciardo ended up sixth on the grid following the incident.

"Unfortunately, there is some damage," said ISR engineer Peter Berry. "He was straight out of the pitlane on new tyres and took Eau Rouge flat.

"When it happened I was really worried as someone from another team said the damage was really bad. But actually it could have been far worse. There is some damage to the crash box but we can repair it and thankfully the gearbox is fine. We can still win from sixth."

Berry was more upset that three cars had used the fast lane of the pits to jump a queue for the restart following the ensuing red flag. The fast lane can only be used when there is a green light at the pitlane exit.

Gravity-Charouz's Brendon Hartley and Jan Charouz, as well as Comtec's Daniel de Jong were given a warning but allowed to keep their times. De Jong was squeezed inches from the pitwall by championship leader Alexander Rossi trying to exit his garage.

Comtec team manager John Barnett explained the incident: "They flashed a green light here, but the light was red down the other end of the pitlane. We couldn't physically see the other light.

"Unfortunately that caused problems for Fortec, as they couldn't get their cars out of their garage because there were three cars parked in the way. We didn't gain anything from doing it. It was just a silly mistake."

Fifth qualifier Hartley was relieved to hang on to his position.

"There was a green light shown on the screens here, so that's why we went," he said. "Fifth is not a bad position to start from. The team is still new, although we have a lot of experience with several members coming from DAMS. I think we're getting there."

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