Michael Schumacher said that a set-up change caused him to lock a wheel and crash during first practice for the Monaco Grand Prix.

10157 - Michael Schumacher blames set-up change

Schumacher locked up on the run down to Ste Devote but still tried to make the corner, and then made a late decision to try and take to the escape road but ended up sliding sideways in to the tyre wall. Despite the incident, Schumacher praised the work of the Mercedes mechanics in delivering him with an equally quick car for the second session.

"Our gap to the front seems to be less here than in Barcelona," said Schumacher. "With my crash this morning, we had made a set-up change for the run and I locked up braking for turn one. After that, my decision to go down the escape road was too late, which is why I hit the barrier. The mechanics did a super job and the car this afternoon was just as quick as this morning. What Nico showed in terms of one-lap pace looks good, and our long runs were also quite reasonable."

Mercedes team-principal Ross Brawn also praised the work of the mechanics , and said that the running it allowed both drivers to do had given the team plenty of data with both the soft and super-soft tyres.

"We had a productive day with lots of good work achieved," Brawn said. "The team recovered extremely well from Michael's incident this morning, and gave him a good car for the afternoon session. We worked on high and low fuels levels with the two tyre compounds, and the tyres seemed to hold up reasonably well, probably better than we expected, which will be taken into account for Sunday's race."