Susie Wolff blames Nasr for ‘unnecessary’ testing collision

Williams test driver Susie Wolff has labelled her collision with Felipe Nasr during the opening day of Formula One testing at Barcelona as an "unnecessary coming together" and blamed him for instigating the accident.

Wolff, who completed 86 laps in total today, was hit by Nasr's Sauber at Turn 5, sending both cars into the gravel and sustaining major damage to her left-front corner.

"Really unfortunate, what you really don't want is to do is lose time during these tests and we lost most of the afternoon through something unnecessary," she said.

"It's on video for everybody to see. I was on my out-lap and I guess he was already on a flying lap. I was braking for Turn 5, I stayed on line, and he came across and his rear [tyre] hit my front. An unnecessary coming together.

"Very difficult to understand how and why it happened, but it did. These things can happen sometimes. But to lose so much time in the car was really tough for me."

Upbeat about her performance

Before the crash, Wolff was buoyed by the performance of the Williams compared to her experience of last year's car – which mainly came during free practice at the German Grand Prix.

"We learnt a lot today, and completed almost a race distance this morning," she said. "It was good to get long runs in the car to get a better understanding of tyre management. It feels like a good step forward from the FW36."