Caterham are not worried about Heikki Kovalainen's spectacular engine failure in FP1, revealing that it was set to be changed after Thursday's running.
With less than ten minutes remaining in first practice, Kovalainen suffered an engine blow-out on his way out of the tunnel.
Plumes of smoke poured from the back of his Caterham, obscuring the track and forcing FIA race director Charlie Whiting to red flag the session, which was called just a few minutes later.
"Heikki's FP1 was cut short by the engine failure it was at the end of the session and we did not lose any track time as the session was red flagged," said technical director Mark Smith.
"The new engine he ran in FP2 was due to go on his car tomorrow anyway, it had covered more than 2,000kms, so it really was not a big problem for us to see his morning session end that spectacularly!
"The team worked very well with Renault Sport F1 to make the engine change over lunch and Heikki was back on track about six minutes after FP2 began."
As for Kovalainen, he admits it was a mixed day with some progress and some issues.
"This morning's session went pretty well," said the Caterham driver.
"We tried a new suspension part early on that felt pretty good, and then we ran through a normal FP1 session on the primes until the engine let go as I was entering the tunnel towards the end of the session.
"As soon as I engaged neutral the rear axle locked up and that brought FP1 to a slightly early end."
Kovalainen's woes, though, were not over as in the afternoon's session the Finn had to contend with the rain and finished up parked down the escape road at Mirabeau.
In FP2 everyone had the same issues with the rain and even though we got a couple of laps done on the supersofts I didn't have a chance to put in a flying lap on those so we'll have to look at that again on Saturday
"We made the final run on the inters and coming into turn five the car went straight on - it was very greasy out there but there was no damage so I parked it and that was that."
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