Gugelmin escapes practice shunt

The PacWest driver lost control of his Reynard-Mercedes exiting turn four and looked set the spin heavily into the wall. Luckily he was able to escape with just a minor brush with the barrier on the inside of the track and managed to drive the car back to the pits safely.

'I stepped on the gas a little too soon coming out of turn four and I lost the rear end,' he recounted.

'I tried to avoid the outside wall but I ended up coming down and making minor contact with inside wall.

'We had made some changes for that run and I was hoping to use the four minutes remaining to learn more about the car. I guess now we have to wait until tomorrow.'

His team-mate Mark Blundell languished in 21st position, but said he was unconcerned by his apparent lack of pace.

'Considering we ran most of the afternoon session with heavy fuel loads and pretty worn tyres, we are happy with that time,' he said.

'We played with the set-up a lot during the session and I think we are looking okay for qualifying.'