Sergio Hernandez was able to escape with a bruised foot from his heavy accident ꦅduring the opening race of the World Touring Car Championship meeting on the streets of Porto.

The BMW Team Italy-Spain driver had qualified 🍌down the order after a tough qualifying session at the Portuguese street circuit, which lef💎t him in the middle of the pack for the rolling start when race one got underway.

A slow start from Tom Coronel backed up a number of drivers behind, and - with cars going three wide - Hernandez touched wheels with the♕ LADA of Jaap van Lagen.

That contact saw Hernandez go heavily into the concrete barrier on the start-finish straight, destroy🍸ing the front of his car and leaving the Spaniard needing a trip to hospital.

Luckily, Herna🌜ndez escaped without broken bones and is expected to make 🗹a quick recovery from the bruising he sustained in the impact.

"I'm okay, although my foot still gives me a lot of pain," he said. "The doctors say that I will be much better in a few days. The impact was really h✃ard. But fortunately the BMW 320si WTCC is an extremely safe vehicle."

Dutch driver van Lagen also escaped injury, although the damage sustained in the a✤ccident was enough to rule the LADA driver out of the remainder of the weekend.

"It was a real pity but just one of those racing incidents," he said. "I made a great start and I was confident that we could move up the order but then I ended up with nowhere to go, so my weekend was over before it had begun. These things happen in racing but it's still very dis💞appointing."