Hamilton insists clash doesn't change Rosberg dynamic

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Lewis Hamilton insists the collision with Nico Rosberg at the start of the Spanish Grand Prix does not change the dynamic between the two drivers.

Rosberg and Hamilton crashed out on the opening lap of the race after the latter lost control on the grass on the run to Turn 4 having tried to overtake his team-mate. The stewards dismissed the clash as a racing incident and Hamilton says he and Rosberg will not race each other any differently in future.

"Honestly it doesn’t change anything," Hamilton said. "We’ll just keep racing, we’ll obviously try to make sure this doesn’t happen again and that’s it. We’re going to be racing, the position won’t be the same in Monaco because you never have those kind of opportunities really."

However, Hamilton admits he and Rosberg have yet to discuss the incident between themselves in depth.

"We’ve not really had a conversation, with the team we’ve all sat down together united and we work together. We haven’t come out any worse than it already is, we’ve got no penalties which is a good thing."

With Rosberg explaining his move to the inside was designed to show Hamilton there was no space, the triple world champion says he had no time to back out once he attempted the move.

"No, when you make a decision, particularly at the speed I was going, it was the same as if you were going down the straight and have the DRS and have a decision to go right or left. It was similar, maybe not as quick as the DRS difference, sometimes that 25kph difference, this was like 16[kph].

"You make a calculation, a split second decision. The outside is never the one you want to go to overtake someone. The gap is one car width and the inside is two car widths and a bit, so I went for that one."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.