María de Villota seriously hurt in Duxford F1 test accident

María de Villota, a test driver for the Marussia Formula 1 team, was admitted to hospital on Tuesday after suffering serious injuries in a crash at Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire, England. The accident occurred when the car De Villota was putting through aerodynamic tests collided with a Marussia support truck that had transported the vehicle to the track.

“At around 9.15am, María de Villota suffered an accident at the wheel of an MR-01, while she was testing the vehicle for the first time. The accident happened at the end of her first installation run when the car hit the team’s support truck,” Marussia said in a statement. Later the team said that she was being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge and that she was “conscious.”

A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said the driver had suffered “serious injuries.”

De Villota joined Marussia in March and is the only female test driver on the Formula 1 circuit. She had previously competed in the Superleague Formula competition and had tested for Renault. Tuesday was De Villota’s first test in the Marussia Formula 1 car.

An eyewitness to the accident, the BBC’s Chris Mann, said: “It was a shocking accident. The car was moving slowly and suddenly accelerated into the truck at about 40 miles per hour. She did not move for about 15 minutes. The ambulance waited for around an hour until they felt it was safe to remove her from the car.”

De Villota, 32, is the daughter of Spanish former Formula 1 driver Emilio de Villota.