Raikkonen plays down practice crash

Kimi Raikkonen has played down the heavy crash he suffered at the end of opening practice for the Korean Grand Prix on Friday, explaining that it was "nothing special".

The Lotus driver, who ultimately ended the day eighth fastest, lost control of his car through the Turn 17/18 kink before sliding across the track and hitting the barriers situated on the right-hand side, eerily similar to Vitaly Petrov's accident back in 2010.

"I just lost the rear of the car and that was it. It was nothing special," Raikkonen told reporters at the Korea International Circuit. "These things can happen, but luckily the team managed to fix the car for the second session, so we didn't lose much."

Raikkonen added that the impact has not aggravated his back injury any further, although the curbing on the exit of Turn 8 has been giving him some discomfort.

"It's not ideal, particularly on the kerb coming out of Turn 8," he said. "That kerb is not very smooth and on one lap I couldn't get out of it – it wasn't very nice. So I'll try to stay away from it, because when you touch it at high speed it pulls you even further into it."

In the sister Lotus, Romain Grosjean lapped half a second quicker to finish sixth.