2016 Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg has insisted that Lewis Hamilton was completely to blame for his collision with George Russell, on the opening lap of Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix.
Hamilton started the race in third on the Soft compound whilst Russell got underway in second on the Medium compound, meaning the seven-time World Champion had an early grip advantage at the Lusail International Circuit.
As a result, the 38-year-old made a much better start than Russell and tried to pull alongside his team-mate and pole sitter Max Verstappen.
Hamilton was on the outside as the approached the opening corner and attempted to swoop around the outside; however, he judged the move completely wrong.
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The Stevenage-born driver cut across the front of Russell and clipped the ex-Williams driver’s rear wing, sending the 103-time race winner spinning into the gravel.
Russell also span round but was able to continue in the race, albeit at the back.
Russell did brilliantly to recover to fourth, to score some solid points.
The collision was investigated by the race stewards, who ultimately judged it as a racing incident.
Despite this, Hamilton took “full responsibility” for the accident and was seen apologising to Russell after the race.
Both drivers initially blamed each other over the team radio, only for Hamilton to accept the blame after watching a replay.
Rosberg agreed that the accident was completely Hamilton’s fault, even though it was just a small “misjudgement”.
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The former driver noted that Hamilton didn’t give his team-mate enough room, resulting in the collision which ended his race early.
“Yeah, George thought the race was over, but actually [it] turns out [it wasn’t],” Rosberg told Sky Sports F1.
“This is going to be interesting to analyse obviously, Lewis has the soft tyres so he just tries to go round the outside but it’s three people going into turn one.”