McLaren expect all-clear for Kovalainen

The Finn's car went off the track at Turn 9 on lap 22, ploughing into a tyre barrier and getting lodged underneath.

With doctors at the track finding no injuries, Kovalainen has been airlifted to a nearby hospital for further precautionary checks.

McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh was hopeful, however, that Kovalainen was fine and that he would be back in action soon.

"There are no visible injuries, but he has obviously banged his head and as a precaution he is now being flown to hospital and they will just check on the concussion," Whitmarsh told ITV.

"He was complaining that he hit his elbow, but I think that is quite normal. There are no signs of serious injury, so that's good news. And I am sure that once they have checked him out, he will be back fit and well very soon."

When asked if he expected Kovalainen to race in the next event in Turkey, Whitmarsh added: "I'm not a doctor but all the signs are that he will be fine by the time we get to Turkey."

Whitmarsh believes that the accident was caused by a wheel-rim failure, which broke the front left wheel and prevented Kovalainen from turning.

"Obviously we don't have a lot of data on the issues, but we can detect from the data that we had a sudden deflation of tyre pressure, we don't believe it was a tyre failure," he said. "There was evidence of part of the rim becoming detached. It wasn't a classic structural failure.

"Potentially a bit of debris, a stone or maybe part of the car got inside the rim, which caught it, machined it and the rim failed, which then caused that sudden deflation."