Blame it on Rio? Rookie suffers pit-lane crash

Indonesian rookie Rio Haryanto's Formula One debut turned sour on Saturday when he was punished for a pit-lane crash during the final practice at the Australian Grand Prix and condemned to start the race from back of the grid.

The 23-year-old from central Java, his nation's first F1 driver, rolled out of the Manor Racing garage at the start of the session and straight into the side of Romain Grosjean's Haas.

Frenchman Grosjean had entered the pit-lane first and stewards came down hard on Haryanto, slapping him with a three-grid position penalty and two penalty points.

"The driver ... did not pay attention to the approaching car which was in the fast lane," stewards said in a statement.

Both Haryanto and Grosjean had to head straight back to their garage, with the Frenchman second-best in the clash and condemned to wait for technicians to fit a new floor and front wing to his car before he was able to resume.

Haryanto posted the slowest lap in practice and then his first qualifying was over almost as soon as it began.

His sole lap was the second slowest out of the 22-driver field and he was among the seven knocked out from the first of the three sessions in the revamped qualifying.

He will at least have familiar company on the back row, with German team mate Pascal Wehrlein alongside him.

Haryanto felt it "pretty strange" to have had such a short run in the new qualifying format which was widely criticised as a flop by drivers and pundits on its Melbourne debut.

In the previous qualifying regime, Haryanto would have had 18 minutes to improve lap times in Q1 but in the new system, in which drivers are progressively eliminated, he was knocked out within 10 minutes.

McLaren's twice world champion Fernando Alonso said he was concerned that the new format was unfair on weaker teams and Manor Racing's two rookie drivers certainly had little chance to improve on their initial efforts in qualifying.

"Today we only had time for one lap," Haryanto said.

"It wasn’t a bad lap either, but it also wasn’t perfect. I could have been quicker and that’s what we’ll have to work on.

"Tomorrow is my first F1 race and I’m very excited for that. I’m sure we can have a better day.”