Heidfeld hits medical car in freak crash

Bernoldi spun into the barriers at the Senna S with just moments of the session remaining. The impact with the tyrewall wrecked the right side of his Arrows and caused an oil fire, which prompted the Mercedes medical car, containing the FIA's medical guru Professor Sid Watkins, to rush to the scene of the crash as flames licked around the cockpit area.

Cars were forced into evasive action, as wheels from Bernoldi's car rolled across the track and, just as Watkins and driver Alex Ribeiro opened their doors to assist Bernoldi, Heidfeld's Sauber jinked on to the grass to avoid Bernoldi's car and smashed into the door of the medical car, almost swiping it off. Heidfeld came to a halt soon after with damage to his car's right side.

"I spun and hit the wall, because there is not much run-off there," said Bernoldi. "Lots of cars were passing me, so I didn't know whether to get out or not. Heidfeld was one of the last cars past me, and just as I was getting out, he hit the medical car! After that, I just wanted to get out of the place."

Heidfeld said: "I didn't see any yellow flags. There was a Ferrari in front of me, which took some of my vision away, and I was left with nowhere to go. There was a bit of a gap on the left, but then the guy opened his door. I tried to go even more to my left but there wasn't room."

Sauber's team manager, Beat Zehnder, commented: "Felipe [Massa] said the same as Nick, there were no yellow flags but there was a red flag at the scene of the crash. Obviously, the duty of the medical car is to help as fast as possible, so I think this was just bad luck."

The session was re-started with the chastened Ribeiro and Watkins switching to their spare Mercedes estate.