- First Barcelona Test - Day One
Nasr: Wolff said she did not see me
Felipe Nasr refused to blame Susie Wolff for the pair's collision on the opening day of testing in Barcelona but said the crash could have easily been avoided had she known he was coming.
Nasr had accumulated an impressive lap haul coming into the afternoon, but his session was disrupted when he ended up in the gravel trap after Wolff's front left made contact with his right rear as he attempted to overtake the Williams. After the incident Wolff blamed Nasr for moving across her line but the Brazilian rookie said he felt he was well within his rights to pass her at that point.
"I was opening my lap, actually I was on a push lap there, and I could see her leaving the pits at that time so she was driving quite slow in front of me," Nasr said. "As I did Turn 4 I caught up with her and I did see her moving to the right so I thought she knew I was coming, because she was on a slow lap. Then I committed myself into the braking for Turn 5, on the inside, so when I was doing the braking I felt a big hit on my rear suspension so I think she never saw me coming.
"That was the only thing I asked her was if she saw me and she said no. I was clearly on the braking zone already, so a few metres after the braking already. When I committed to the move it was because she was enough to the right. But I'm not sure how aware she was of my car coming."
When told Williams had placed the blame in his camp, Nasr suggested Wolff was not properly informed he was coming.
"Well, I don't know! As I said, she told me she wasn't aware of my car coming so I can't blame her for not seeing my car. I don't really know what to say, in Formula One the teams are always trying to give you the best advice about the cars that are coming behind so I think maybe there was something she missed. It could have been avoided, I would say.
"I don't know if she didn't get a message from the team, or if she wasn't aware of it, or didn't check the mirrors, I don't know. I don't want to make such a big story of it, it's testing, everyone's doing different out laps and push laps and it can happen."
Sauber managed to fix his car, fixing a spare rear wing to the C34, something Nasr praised his mechanics for.
"I did, and I have to say they did an amazing job. If you saw the damage that was made you wouldn't think it would get back so it was such a good job from all of them."
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