Villeneuve praises mechanics' efforts

The impact tore practically every external component off his 004, but fortunately the tub was undamaged, and some sterling work enabled the Canadian to get back out with just over 10 minutes of the second session remaining.

"The car seemed to lose traction on the exit from Spoon Curve and I hit the kerb, lost control then spun the car into the barrier," he explained. "It was quite a heavy impact but I'm fine. The car was quite badly damaged though so the guys did a fantastic job to get it ready in time to get any more running today.

Villeneuve only managed to set the 19th best time during his limited running and says there is much work to be done to get the car working well.

"The engineers did a lot of work during the downtime while the car was being repaired using Olivier's data, but we're too slow and we have a lot of catching up to do. We have a lot of work ahead of us this evening."

BAR's troubles were compounded when Olivier Panis stopped out on track during the red flag period while Villeneuve's broken machine was being craned to safety. At first it looked as though the Frenchman had broken down, but in fact he had just stalled his car.

"I slowed down to pick my way around the debris from Jacques' car and to check he wasn't hurt," he said. "I lost concentration and stalled the car so I'm sorry for the team because of that. I can't believe it!"