Schumacher escapes unhurt in Monza crash

Ferrari's triple world champion Michael Schumacher escaped unhurt from a big crash in a Formula One test session on Tuesday.

"He says he's fine and he's looking very calm," his spokeswoman Sabine Kehm later said. "It was quite a big accident."

Schumacher lost control of the rear of his Ferrari F2001 under heavy braking shortly after 12.15 local on the first day of testing at Monza and hit the guard rail at the second chicane, the Variante della Roggia.

The impact, at a point on the circuit where top speeds approach 310 kph, ripped off both the front wheels and sent the car skidding along the Armco before coming to a standstill against the tyre barrier.

The German, who leads McLaren's British driver David Coulthard in the championship by 37 points after finishing runner-up in Sunday's British Grand Prix, was taken to the medical centre and later discharged.

"Michael Schumacher is in good shape and a check-up at the circuit medical centre revealed no specific problems," Ferrari's official website (www.ferrari.com) reported.

"The driver then joined his engineers to watch footage and study telemetry data to try and understand the cause of the accident."

Ferrari said he will take no further part in testing on Tuesday and would return home to Switzerland later.

The world champions, who lead McLaren by 52 points in the constructors' title race with six grands prix remaining, said they would announce a revised test schedule later in the evening.

Schumacher, the dominant Formula One driver with six victories from 11 races so far this season, had been due to test on Wednesday and Thursday before handing over to Brazilian Rubens Barrichello.

The 32-year-old German is on course to secure his fourth Formula One title long before the end of the season and could equal Frenchman Alain Prost's record of 51 wins at his home German Grand Prix at Hockenheim next week.