Pedro de la Rosa’s running was severely curtailed as he crashed his HRT in Friday afternoon practice ahead of the European Grand Prix. As his left-front brake disc caught fire moments later, a failure was believed to be the cause, but the Spaniard has since admitted that an error of his own caused an impromptu trip into the Turn 14 tyre wall.
“In the first session our weakest point was braking, as we were locking the front and rear tyres,” explained the Barcelona-born driver. “We improved notably in the afternoon after making some changes and you could feel it straight away.
“The session was going well but I made a mistake and went off track which, unfortunately, damaged the entire front suspension. My session ended there and we were unable to test neither the Soft tyres nor many things which we had in mind, but I'm keeping the positive aspect which is that we improved the car.
“I'm well and my mechanics are already repairing the car; they're extraordinary professionals and everything will be ready again tomorrow to give it our best go once more in front of our home fans.”
Back on-track, team-mate Narain Karthikeyan finished the day in 23rd place.
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:39.334 | 32 |
| 2. | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | 01:39.465 | 32 |
| 3. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | 01:39.595 | 20 |
| 4. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | 01:39.601 | 27 |
| 5. | B. Senna | Williams | 01:39.644 | 34 |
| 6. | P. di Resta | Force India | 01:39.700 | 32 |
| 7. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:39.733 | 34 |
| 8. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 01:39.868 | 33 |
| 9. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:39.901 | 30 |
| 10. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:39.926 | 32 |
| Full results | ||||
| Pedro de la Rosa | |||
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| More Pedro de la Rosa photos | |||
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