Macau: Salignon escapes unhurt

Salignon had got away well from his 19th grid slot and, seeing the stalled TOM's of Kazuki Nakajima ahead of him, he tried to edge to the right to get around him. However, his route was blocked by another car and he could do nothing to avoid smashing into the back of the stationary car.

Without steering or brakes, his car still had enough momentum to end up hitting the barriers on the left hand side of the track. Having been banged about in the impact, Salignon required assistance to get out of the car and was taken off to hospital for precautionary checks.

"It was really frustrating," Salignon told autosport.com. "I had managed to avoid Nakajima but there was another car on the track where I wanted to go and he pushed me into the back of the TOM's car. There was nothing I could do."

However, despite initial worries that he could have suffered injuries, he was released from hospital without any problems.

"I'm fine and everything is okay," said Salignon, who has only just recovered from injuring himself in a road car accident last month.

The damage to his car was quite severe and his ASM team has decided it would be more beneficial to fix the damage ahead of the Bahrain Formula 3 race next month than rush to get it back into action for Sunday's Macau final.

Salignon's start-line accident brought an end to a nightmare weekend for the Frenchman, whose only highlight was winning a pre-event running race the day before first practice. He caused two red flags after separate crashes in the two qualifying sessions.

Nakajima, the son of former grand prix driver Satoru, sprained his neck in the accident and is also doubtful for Sunday's race.