[HHugo]

Mika Salo deliberately crashed his Toyota into the barriers at the Monaco Grand Prix.

The brake pedal on Salo’s Toyota TF102 went soft at Massenet, one of the fastest corners on the track. The quick-thinking Finn avoided a more serious crash by driving into the inside barrier rather than continuing straight on.

He explained: "The brake pedal suddenly went soft and I thought I was going to have a very big shunt, so I actually tried to scrub some speed off against the inside barrier.

"I could see the Vodafone banner, which was still damaged from when Eddie Irvine hit it on Thursday. I thought I was going to crash in exactly the same place, very hard, but then the impact with the inside wall was hard enough to actually spin me around.

"It’s frustrating not to finish the race but the positive thing is that none of the Toyota parts failed!"

Salo, who was starting his 100th grand prix, reckoned he could have finished in the points had it not been for the brake problem and an earlier incident when a rear tyre delaminated, meaning he had to make an unscheduled stop.

He said: "I felt a very strong vibration and I think a whole section of the tyre came away. At first I thought about trying to continue through to my fuel stop, but in the high speed parts of the circuit it was just too dangerous."

bron: www.itv-f1.com