McLaren satisfied with real-life crash test.

Television pictures showing the front of Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren missing following its accident at the Circuit de Catalunya on Sunday naturally caused concern for the health of the driver, but the team insists that the chassis performed as intended.

With Kovalainen being carted off on a stretcher and the remains of the MP4/23 clearly showing the crane carrying it through the gap where the nose should have been, the worst was feared, but the Finn was eventually diagnosed to have little more than a mild concussion and bruising.

"He has had a full head scan and there is no significant bruising or damage - that's extremely good news," McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh confirmed, "Heikki was briefly unconscious, but he was lucid soon after the accident - and I'm told he was actually quite jolly, which is fairly typical."

McLaren continues to analyse data from the incident, but remains confident that it will find that debris caused the sudden deflation of the left front tyre and sent Kovalainen spearing off, across the gravel trap, into - and under - the tyre wall

"We think he suffered a wheel rim failure that caused the tyre to deflate almost instantaneously," Whitmarsh confirmed, "It's possible that some debris worked its way inside the rim, but we still have to analyse that. It was a new wheel and we don't think it was a structural failure. There were some score marks, but we don't know whether they were caused by debris or by his trip across the gravel trap. We've got to answer that later.

"It was a big accident. Cars brake from about 260km/h at that point on the circuit, and he didn't scrub off a huge amount of speed before impact. He was still travelling pretty quickly when he hit the tyre wall, and the impact lasted about 100 milliseconds. That might not sound much, but 20-30 milliseconds would be more usual."

Whitmarsh confirmed that the car was a write-off, but insisted that it had performed as designed, preventing Kovalainen from suffering more serious injuries.

"It was destroyed, the front of the chassis broke off," he revealed, "The chassis is wedge-shaped and we imagine it went in to the barriers until the point at which it snapped. A section of about 450-500mm broke off the front of the chassis, but everything worked as it was supposed to.

"The car absorbed a massive amount of energy, Heikki received no physical injuries and the circuit emergency staff and the FIA medical team at the track did an absolutely fantastic job in getting him out of the car safely and then looking after him thereafter."

Although he trailed the two Ferraris, team-mate Lewis Hamilton and both Fernando Alonso and Robert Kubica early in the race, Kovalainen was leading at the time of his crash, due to the various pit-stop strategies, and Whitmarsh insisted that nothing should be taken away from his performance.

"His misfortune overshadowed the event, but people shouldn't overlook the quality of his performance," the CEO claimed, "He had still to pit for fuel at the time of the accident and wasn't due to come in for a few more laps yet. That gives you some idea of the fuel load he was carrying during qualifying, when he did an absolutely fantastic lap."

Kovalainen was due to be discharged from hospital on Monday evening and has already targeted a return to action in Turkey. He will rest for a few days in Spain before beginning preparations to pass the mandatory FIA physical in Istanbul.