Further drama for McNish

McNish lost much of Saturday morning's first free practice session when the car stalled leaving the pit lane but unfortunately crossed the white line bordering the circuit, which meant that he was unable to take part in the rest of the session.

His dramas continued in qualifying when he had a high-speed spin in the fourth gear penultimate corner where the drivers are pulling lateral forces of more than 3g.

"I tried to take the corner flat-out and I hit the inside kerb ever so slightly, which bounced the car out. Then I dropped a wheel off the outside kerb and that put me into the spin. I was a bit over-ambitious I guess...

"At first I thought I was going to hit the wall but I managed to get the car angled and I knew that if I was going properly backwards I might get away with it. The car just glanced the wall but I wasn't sure what to do after that. You're not allowed to drive the wrong way up the pitlane but I needed to find some way to get away from the barrier. There were cars coming from everywhere and they look as if they are doing about 400mph when you are sat there parked!

"Eventually I buzzed it round, looked pretty cool, and drove off. There was no damage at all. The car is robust! I didn't need to change anything before my next run, we just bolted on a new set of tyres and off I went. That next run was a pretty clean lap actually, the one I qualified with."

Unfortunately, Toyota's expected downforce deficit did manifest itself around Barcelona and team-mate Mika Salo and McNish start the race 18th and 20th respectively.