De la Rosa slams McNish 'lunacy'

"I'm far from happy with McNish!" said de la Rosa. "I had made a reasonably good start and was charging down the second straight when I noticed Allan overtake me on the outside as we approached the chicane. Given our heavy fuel load, we were prepared for this.

"As we got nearer the chicane, I tried a similar move on him and even though he was on the inside, he moved over to the outside and hit me. There was absolutely no reason for him to have done that and at 330 kph, it was utter lunacy. Maybe he didn't see me, I don't know, but it essentially ended my race."

De la Rosa dropped off the lead lap while in the pits. He retired on lap 29.

Team-mate Eddie Irvine meanwhile, endured an uneventful race before an engine failure forced him to retire. "Everything was going to plan until the pit stop when we noticed the increasing temperature read outs, " he said, "It proved to be a terminal problem when I lost drive on lap 42."