DAMON HILL revealed he was glad to have escaped uninjured, from the rain soaked Spanish Grand Prix yesterday, after sliding out following a hat trick of unforced errors.

"I am just relieved to be in one piece," admitted Hill, who spun twice before sliding off on lap 11 and seeing old rival Michael Schumacher produce a superb first win for Ferrari.

"It was a bad day for me. I made two mistakes in the conditions, and then a third. The race was a bit of a write off really. It was difficult to see anything and I had problems.

Hill has now come away from his last two races without a point.

He was one of several drivers who believed the race should have got under way with the safety car because of the atrocious conditions, while McLaren's David Coulthard wondered whether it should have gone ahead at all.

"It's the decision of the F1 (the sport's world governing body), but with this amount of rain it must be questioned whether we should have started," said Coulthard.

Schumacher, who took his victory total to 20 in 76 races, said: "I really didn't think we would win this race. In qualifying, the Williams was so far ahead of us. Even in the warm up the car did not feel very good, but after the terrible start I had the car felt perfect."

Third placed Jacques Villeneuve who, like Schumacher, is 17 points adrift of Hill in the title race, said: "I don't know what happened to Damon at the start, but I got a great one. I was able to take advantage of having nobody in front of me, but Michael was just going so much faster."