Klien rues Raikkonen accident

The pair touched wheels going through Turn Four, damaging the rear suspension on Raikkonen's McLaren and the front suspension of Klien's Red Bull Racing RB2.

Although Klien was able to make it back to the pits for repairs, eventually returning to the race before hydraulic problems forced him out, Raikkonen spun out and into the tyre barriers following the incident.

Klien said: "The start was okay. I was in a good place, then in Turn four there were three cars (me and the two McLarens) going into it. I was right on the inside, already over the kerbs. I couldn't go further to the right and mine and Kimi's cars touched. I broke my front suspension and that was basically it.

"I went to the pits and we tried to fix it just to get some more mileage on the car. We went out once more, but then we had a hydraulics failure and that was the end of the race. It's very disappointing, if you look at the race pace I think we could have been right up there."

Although teammate David Coulthard retired from the race with similar hydraulic problems to those that hit Klien, the Scotsman was upbeat about the speed potential shown by the RB2.

"I lost hydraulic pressure in the car, which meant I had no power assistance going into the chicane," said Coulthard. "With that alone your afternoon's going to be difficult, but as the gearbox is controlled by the hydraulics as well, I became stuck in sixth gear. Once you lose the ability to change gear you've no chance, so unfortunately we had to retire the car.

"The start of the race was good, I got up behind Michael, I had a long strategy, felt reasonably comfortable, was quick in areas where you could overtake and slow in the bits where you were following people, and I think we could have had easy points today.

"We're still learning a lot about this car. We lost a lot of winter testing because of the cooling issues, but basically I think the car has good pace, I'm just trying to find a set up that's suitable for me. I feel a lot more confident in the car this weekend so the future is encouraging - the car is definitely capable of scoring points in Grands Prix."