Sebastian Vettel felt Lewis Hamilton was at fault for their collision on the opening lap at the Italian Grand Prix, despite the stewards clearing the Mercedes driver.
As Vettel looked to get ahead of Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen he left too much room at the third corner to encourage Hamilton to attempt an overtake of his own.
Hamilton made his stick but as Vettel tried to cut the space he turned into his championship rival, spinning the German around and leaving him needing a new front wing. That effectively ended Vettel's chances of victory at Monza and allowed Hamilton to go on and extend his lead in the drivers' standings to 30 points thanks to a sixth triumph in 2018.
After the race Vettel, who finished fourth, still felt Hamilton was in the wrong.
"I think you have more angles than I have but I tried to pass Kimi and he opened the brakes and I didn't have a gap," he told Sky Sports.
"Lewis saw the gap round the outside but he didn't leave me any space. I had no other chance [but] to run into him and make contact. I tried to obviously get out of there but I couldn't. Then I was the one who spun around, which was ironic."
Hamilton's win gave him a significant advantage at the top of the drivers' standings, but Vettel remains philosophical about his chances of catching the Briton.
"When you're looking the wrong way, things do not look too peachy but I recovered and got a lot of points," he added. "It doesn't help when you lose points but it's not the end of the world. We will all still wake up tomorrow morning."
"I'm not too worried [about the points difference]. I think we have the pace. The points sound a lot but actually it doesn't take a long time to get them down."
Comments
SHARE