Sebastian Vettel believes arch-rival Lewis Hamilton simply did not leave him the space he needed when the pair made contact at the second chicane on the opening lap of the Italian Grand Prix.
The German driver held his own on the run down to Turn 1 shortly after the start, hot on the heels of team mate Kimi Raikkonen and with Hamilton snapping at his heels.
The trio rushed through the Curva Grande in formation but on the approach to the Variante della Roggia, Hamilton went for the outside line and gained an edge over Vettel.
The Ferrari driver then drifted into the side of the Mercedes and promptly spun around, leaving him at the tail end of the field and a massive amount of work to do for the remainder of the afternoon.
"He didn't leave me any space," said Vettel after the race.
"I had no other choice but to run into him and make contact. I tried obviously to get out from there, but I couldn't.
"Unfortunately I was the one that spun around, a bit ironic, but then I was looking the wrong way and things weren't looking too peachy."
It was obviously a bad break for Vettel who underlined otherwise the good performance of his SF71-H.
"From there I think we drove well and tried to recover," he added.
"We still got a lot of points so it could have been a lot worse. It doesn't help when you lose points but it's not the end of the world.
"We're down at the moment, mostly for the fans, but their support has been incredible.
"Unfortunately we didn't deliver. What can you do. I got spun round and there's not much you can do. I'm not too worried.
"We have the pace, okay the points gap sounds a lot, but we can get it back."
As unworried as he may be, Vettel still conceded 13 points to Hamilton in the drivers' standings, and currently sits 30 points adrift from the Brit with seven races remaining on the calendar.
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