Rio Haryanto was one of a number of drivers to suffer from unfortunate mishaps during the first day of practice at Monaco on Thursday.
In Haryanto’s case, the Indonesian ace lost control of his Manor car exiting the tunnel on the run down to the turn 10 chicane, and while he was able to keep the car off the right hand barrier he ended up losing the back end and spinning around into a hard impact with the barrier on the other side of the track instead.
“I just lost it at Turn 10 because it’s quite bumpy and tricky,” he said. “I was on the ultrasoft tyre on my second pushing lap, and I just lost the rear as it snapped. It just went into the wall.
“I just don’t want to hit the wall at the back because I remember someone lost it and went straight into the barriers on the opposite of [turn] 11 on the right. So, I just tried to slow down as much as I could, hit the brakes as hard as I could.”
Haryanto didn’t think there would be any problems getting the car ready for Saturday’s free practice and qualifying sessions, and he reported no ill effects for himself.
“I have time to recover. Hopefully, it should be all right,” he confirmed. “I feel all right, just a bit unfortunate that we couldn’t finish the run program.
“Looking at the car damage, it isn’t too bad, it’s quite minor,” he said, adding that a change of gearbox would not be a big issue. “It’s actually a gearbox that was in for today, for practice, and we will have a different one in for Saturday.”
Even the lost track time shouldn’t be that much of a disadvantage thanks to the long runs undertaken by his team mate Pascal Wehrlein.
“It was the plan to do a long run on the ultrasoft, but Pascal did a long run so we do have some data to analyse,” he said. “Pascal shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s his first time here and he’s doing really well.”
Haryanto admitted that he was finding the difference between his old GP2 car and his current Manor car was more pronounced here at Monaco than at many circuits he’s raced at since moving up to Formula One over the winter.
“I’m quite happy with my performance and making use of my experience like in GP2 and bringing it to F1.
“To get the limit, I think [Monaco feels most different from GP2]. I tried to brake later in FP2 and it just went to snap, so it’s quite tricky here to be on the limits of the car because there is no room for error.
“The power is completely different. Just before braking at Turn 1, it’s a lot quicker than GP2. Apart from that, it’s a different car, it’s a different feeling in the car, different tyres as well.”
Ricciardo over 0.6s clear in error-strewn FP2
Romain Grosjean column: ‘I want Jules to always be with us’
Click Here: liverpool mens jersey
Silbermann says … Easyjet-set
Chris Medland’s 2016 Monaco Grand Prix preview
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter