Sato squares up to Dennis over crash

Despite being surrounded by McLaren staff in its garage, Sato made his feelings clear to Dennis that he was on a qualifying run when Raikkonen, who was not on a flier, moved across on the Japanese driver at the high-speed entry to the Roggia chicane. The cars touched, and Sato's front-left corner was almost snapped off before he speared into the gravel trap and the tyre wall.

Raikkonen's car was also damaged in the clash, which caused a red flag with just two minutes of the session remaining.

Kimi, who was clutching an ice pack to his left elbow, did not appear to take too much notice of Takuma's complaints, but Dennis appeared to argue with the Japanese driver about how many flying laps he had completed consecutively.

"My incident with Sato is one of those things which happen in racing," said Raikkonen. "He was on his fifth consecutive lap, and my team was under the impression that he would be coming into the pits, which is what you would expect during qualifying, and advised me accordingly. When I couldn't see him in my mirrors, I believed he had slowed down and went for the line into the corner."

Concerning the incident, Jordan's engineering chief Gary Anderson quipped: "We'll be sending Kimi a set of our larger mirrors..."