Clarke upset after crash with Tracy

"I was on a second flying lap, and I came up on a Forsythe car really quickly," Clarke told autosport.com. "It had just come out of the pits.

"I was still in second gear when I drew alongside him on the outside of Turn 4 [a very long, fast right hander], but when I saw he was coming over to the left too, I went wider and I hesitated, and we made contact and I went into the wall.

"If he was trying to intimidate me or something, then I don't care. What I do care about is that I lost track time and the damage to the car will cost me a quarter of a million dollars.

"Today is a new day, and my crew, a great bunch of guys, will have worked on my car through the night."

"So effectively today in practice I'm going to be testing a rebuilt car instead of fine-tuning it. Losing track time is what really hurts."

When asked for his view of the incident, Tracy said: "I didn't see Clarke and I didn't even know we'd made contact. I came into the pits because of the red flag, not because I thought I'd got damage."

The rear winglet on the left sidepod of Tracy's Forsythe car broke off in the incident, but otherwise the car was unharmed, and he was able to set third fastest time, which became second when Sebastien Bourdais' car failed post-qualifying technical inspection.

"Turn 4 isn't the sort of corner where you're looking in your mirrors, because it's fast and it's bumpy there," Tracy added. "You've got to concentrate and hold on to the wheel.

"Even if you could see in your mirrors with all that shaking going on, it's an evening session so it's dark and he's in a dark grey car. There was no chance of seeing him."