JUNE 24, 2004

Race fan slices up Klien!

Christian Klien will have to miss the Jaguar Racing test in Barcelona this week after cutting his finger badly on a fan which is used for cooling the brakes of the cars. The Austrian had picked up the fan because he was hot and wanted to cool himself down but one of his fingers slipped through the protective grille around the fan and into the path of the fan blades. The top of his right forefinger was cut deeply and Klien was taken off to hospital to see what could be done. The doctors concluded that the wound could not be stitched up and so it was tightly-bandaged and Klien will now have to wait for the healing process to take effect. Mark Webber has flown down to take over the testing role tomorrow and the team insists that Klien will be ready to go racing again at the French GP. In the event that Klien cannot race the team would almost certainly put in test driver Bjorn Wirdheim but at the moment this is not even under discussion as it is anticipated that Klien will be able to drive.