Hamilton collision was the same as his clash with Rosberg in 2014 · RaceFans

Fernando Alonso said Lewis Hamilton turned in on him as if he was not on the track when the pair collided on the first lap of the Belgian Grand Prix.

They made contact as they went into Les Combes. Hamilton was on the outside of the Alpine driver, and retired due to damage sustained in the collision. Alonso went on to finish sixth.

“I think he thought that I was not there anymore,” said Alonso in response to a question from RaceFans. “So I don’t think that it’s a mistake – it’s just in the heat of the moment you try to take the slipstream, brake late, turn in and sometimes you don’t measure the cars completely, where everybody is. But I don’t know. I normally take more care.”

While the stewards did not penalise Hamilton for the collision, ruling it a racing incident, he took responsibility for it. Alonso agreed “it was a little bit of a mistake from his side to close the door like this.”

He compared the collision to Hamilton’s tangle with Nico Rosberg at the same corner in 2014, when the pair were team mates.

“At turn five, we see many, many times here that it goes parallel,” said Alonso. “It happened the same to him [with] Rosberg a couple of years ago. So this time it was the same thing.”

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However Alonso agreed with the stewards’ decision not to penalise Hamilton. “I think it was a first lap incident,” he said. “These things happens, in that corner especially there are a lot of things that are going on. People normally cut the corner in six and rejoin the track in seven.

“So it’s a tricky part of the of the circuit for sure. It was a racing incident, nothing [more] to say.”

He was frustrated by the impact the collision had on his race. “I’m just sad because when I start P2 or P3, always these things happen, and when I’m 12th or 13th, I have a clean race. So I wanted to have a normal race. And unfortunately we started already with that incident.

“Then we have a very aggressive strategy, stopping very early every time that I don’t think that it was the smartest one. But at the end, top five, it makes a good weekend for us. With Charles’ penalty, fifth and seventh is a great result for the team. So it was a bad weekend for McLaren and we maximised those points.”

Alonso fumed at Hamilton on the radio following the collision, calling his rival an “idiot” who “only knows how to drive starting first.” He said he was “very disappointed” at the…