Burti Recovering after Nightmare Crash

Brazilian Luciano Burti escaped serious injury at the Belgian Grand Prix after his second horrendous crash in two races.

Officials said the Prost driver, who ploughed into a tyre wall at around 240 km/h after clipping the rear tyre of Eddie Irvine's Jaguar, was taken to Liege's university hospital after the crash. The 26-year-old suffers bruising into places on his head and face, and a brain scan showed head injury but with no brain swelling.

As a precautionary measure, he will spend the night in observation and will undergo another scan tomorrow morning.

Burti careered across the track at Blanchimont, one of the fastest and most dangerous parts of the circuit, after three laps as former teammate Irvine tried to hold off his attempt to overtake. Irvine also went off in the incident but was unhurt and rushed to Burti's rescue as marshals struggled to reach the car covered by the tyre wall.

The Briton said later that safety improvements, introduced since the death of Brazilian Ayrton Senna at Imola in 1994, had saved his friend.

"The head and neck restraint system played a key role in saving Luciano from serious injury today," he said. "I was the first on the scene and his head was literally pushed over to one side with the weight of the tyres. The head and neck restraint system obviously absorbed the impact of the tyres."

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Former Formula One driver Jacques Laffite, who has close links to the team run by friend and former champion Alain Prost, said the accident might have proved fatal a decade ago.

"He would have been dead, sure," he said. Laffite said the way the car withstood the impact showed the monocoque was "perfect".

"The problem came from the tyres," he said. "When you have tyres you must have a lot of protection. You must take care the car does not go inside the tyres."

Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, who took his record 52nd win in the race and has already clinched his fourth title, said the tyre walls might need looking at but also praised the safety measures.

"I don't know whether the tyres caused any problems to Luciano except getting him out which took maybe a little bit longer," he said. "But that's something we need to analyse.

"I think the drivers, the FIA and everybody have done a good job there because remember, one or two years ago, we had a big kink in the barrier. If it had still been there, he would have had a really big one, that would have been massive...he would have had a frontal impact at that speed.

Schumacher was involved in Burti's last big accident at the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim last month. In that crash, Burti ploughed into the back of Schumacher's troubled Ferrari on the grid after the lights changed and the Prost rose straight up in the air before landing heavily.

Burti also had a bad crash at the Monaco Grand Prix when he careered into a tyre barrier. The Brazilian joined Prost this season after starting out at Jaguar. He has yet to score a point.