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Vettel withdrawn from Spa

Sebastian Vettel has withdrawn from today's second World Series by Renault race after coming close to severing off his forefinger in yesterday's sprint race at Spa

The incident is also almost certain to rule Vettel out for next week's race at the Nurburgring and deals a harsh blow to any outside hopes of the championship for the German.

The accident occurred at the crest of Eau Rouge on lap three. Vettel was running in second position at the time, behind leader Pastor Maldonado and approximately 30 metres ahead of Alx Danielsson's Comtec car.

"I had massive oversteer," said Vettel. "I caught the slide at the top of Eau Rouge but corrected too much and went wide onto the carpet run-off.

"Then I lost it on the wet carpet and went backwards into tyres. I lost it on the carpet but most of the bad work had already been done.

"Some debris came into the cockpit and has sliced my finger off... okay it's still attached, but the bone is completely sliced."

Vettel joined the championship in place of Colin Fleming at Misano, and astounded the field by coming away with both victories and a pole-position.

The wins immediately moved him into sixth place in the championship. Vettel had qualified fourth for this afternoon's race.

Debris from Vettel's car flew into the side of the following Danielsson, destroying his chassis.

"Vettel was driving like it was a rental car," said the Swede. "It was just a matter of time before he crashed. When he went into the tyres I was just coming past him.

There was the most massive impact you could possibly imagine. A complete wheel came at me at probably 100mph. I thought it would be okay and just bounce off my car but it's completely destroyed."

The Comtec team have worked flat out through the night to re-tub the car to make Alx to the grid. Team manager Jonathan Lewis said: "we've been up all night, we've probably done a week's work in a night.

"I don't know what we've done to deserve so much bad luck. Alx has lost six podiums, and win in Turkey this year. However, from what I hear Alx is very lucky. If the wheel had hit him he'd be dead."

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