The Mercedes and Red Bull drivers were battling for third place on lap 63 of the race when Verstappen attempted to overtake his rival under braking for Turn 1.

As Hamilton entered the corner, Verstappen locked up and overshot the opening corner, his left rear wheel hitting the W15’s right front wheel.

The impact sent Verstappen’s RB20 airborne and he bounced into the run-off area, but he managed to recover and return to the track. Hamilton finished third, while his Dutch rival finished fifth.

While Hamilton believed it was merely a racing incident, Verstappen saw things differently, claiming his rival had illegally changed position under braking – something he was heavily criticised for during the Austrian GP.

“I got a lot of criticism in Austria. People said you had to move while braking, blah blah blah,” said Verstappen.

“I position my car for the first move and then I keep it straight. Today, when braking, it just kept turning to the right and that’s why I also locked up, because I was going for the move.

“But I saw that the car was coming towards me on the outside. Otherwise we would have crashed earlier. I had to stop the car, so I locked it.”

The stewards disagreed with Verstappen’s criticism of Hamilton’s driving and concluded, after examining video, timing and telemetry data, that the seven-time champion had complied with the rules.

However, they did note that Hamilton may have been able to do more to avoid the collision when it became clear that Verstappen was driving alongside him.

In a statement from the stewards, the FIA ​​said: “On the approach to Turn 1, both car 44 (Hamilton) and car 1 (Verstappen) overtook car 23 (Alex Albon).

“Car 44 returned to the racing line before the braking zone and began to turn into Turn 1. Car 1 approached the corner faster than on previous laps (thanks to DRS) and braked at the same point as before.

“The driver of car 1 claimed that car 44 changed direction under braking. The driver of car 44 stated that he was simply following his normal racing line (which was confirmed by examination of video and telemetry evidence from previous laps).

“It was clear that car 1 locked both front wheels approaching Turn 1 before the collision occurred, but missed the normal cornering line for a typical overtaking manoeuvre.

“The driver of car 44 stated that it was a racing incident, while the driver of car 1 claimed that it was a change of direction under braking.

“The stewards do not consider this to be a typical case of ‘change of direction under braking’, although we believe that the driver of car 44 could have done more to avoid the collision.

“We therefore conclude that no director was primarily to blame and decide not to take any further action.”

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording