Both Felipe Nasr and Susie Wolff were divided by opinion after their turn five crash during the opening day of the pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya.
The Sauber F1 Team driver and the Williams Martini Racing test driver collided when the right-rear of Nasr collided with the left-front of Wolff, pitching both off the circuit, with Nasr ending in the barriers. Both car’s were left with significant damage, although their mechanics were able to get both back onto the track towards the end of the day.
Nasr felt that Wolff did not see him approaching at speed, and after moving to claim his line into turn five, with the Brazilian admitting his surprise to be pitched into a spin by the Williams driver.
“In the afternoon we started the programme as scheduled, but were then stopped by an incident,” said Nasr. “I caught up with her at Turn 4 and I could see her moving to the right so I thought that she knew I was coming. Then I committed myself to the braking into Turn 5 on the inside, and I felt a big hit on my rear suspension.
“I asked her if she saw me and she said ‘no, she didn’t see me coming’.”
“We had quite a lot of damage to fix, which hurt our programme. Considering the damage, the team did an amazing job to put the car back together in only a few hours. We were able to go out again and complete some checks.”
Wolff disagreed with Nasr’s verdict on the incident, claiming her own surprise at the nature of the crash, questioning why the Brazilian moved as aggressively as he did.
“I stayed completely on my line, I didn’t expect him to move across as aggressively as he did,” said Wolff. “He hit my front left with his rear. I went straight over to him and asked what the hell went on?
“He was a bit speechless. And to be honest I was a bit speechless.
“It’s stupid. For me what’s clear is that I’m staying straight, I don’t know if he expected me to move over or whether he was trying to optimise the corner entry. But if you know I’m there, he could have just gone into the corner.
“I’m not here to say I blame him, it happened. It was a stupid, unnecessary thing to happen.”
