I was lucky says Chilton

Another driver who was lucky to escape the first lap incident was Marussia’s Max Chilton.

With the Ferrari’s out of position at the start of the race following their elimination in Q1 from Saturday’s qualifying, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso found themselves duelling with unfamiliar foes on the opening lap.

Fernando Alonso had already been caught out before the race had even begun, missing his grid slot by five feet, which resulting in a later five-second penalty.

Whilst Kimi Raikkonen went on to suffer a horror smash, hitting the barrier at 150mph and 47G.

Two other drivers suffered lucky escapes from the incident, the Williams of Felipe Massa deliberately put his car into a spin to avoid t-boning the Ferrari, whilst the Marussia of Max Chilton was lucky to avoid the flying debris.

He described closing his eyes and trying to duck in the cockpit as he saw one of Kimi’s alloy wheels flying towards his head.

Luckily the wheel defected away leaving Chilton unscathed.

‘I was pretty lucky to be honest after the first lap incident. I saw one of the Ferrari’s escape over the exit curb and then it rejoined and it seemed to bottom out as it rejoined and he had a massive tank slapper and it looked like he regained control and then it shot off again.

‘I could see it was going to be a big one because the armco on the right hand side was at 45 degrees and there was no tyres [barrier].

‘It was like an explosion and everything shot diagonally left across the track and I could see a big bit of silver coming and I was pretty sure it was the alloy [wheel], I shut my eyes at that point because it was a big impact and thank god it hit the front nose and went to the left hand side. Chilton told Sky Sports.