Romain Grosjean plays down wheel-banging clash with Lotus team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in Hungarian Grand Prix

Grosjean had been running second when he made his final stop, but a combination of traffic and a searing pace from Raikkonen meant he emerged alongside the Finn heading down to Turn 1.

Neither wanted to cede ground and the pair seemed to kiss wheels before Raikkonen eventually forced Grosjean onto the marbles on the outside to steal second.

Despite the aggression Grosjean said it was a case of both drivers looking after their own interests, comparing the incident to his own defence of the inside when Sebastian Vettel attacked away from the start.

"It was close with Kimi, he did what he had to do," Grosjean said. "I got marbles on my tyres and struggled to recover, but it is what it is.

"It was the same story with Kimi [as with Vettel] - I was inside of Seb so it was alright."

Grosjean was less relaxed about other incidents in the race however, after traffic held him up and ultimately allowed Raikkonen to close.

"It just happened - unfortunately I got stuck behind another car and it wouldn't let me past and I lost 1.5 seconds... I wasn't happy at that stage as I was fighting for win and suddenly I got stuck with something you cannot manage," he added.

"We were close to fight for the win, so we are a little bit [disappointed] today. But I got stuck behind another car on that blue flag and it didn't really respect it."

The Frenchman said part of his troubles were related to the difficulty in following Lewis Hamilton closely - a phenomenon Raikkonen also experienced late on.

"It is really difficult for the car here to be close and not make mistakes," he reported.

"When following Lewis I was losing a bit of grip, then our first pitstop was a disaster. The second one was OK, but I didn't get chance to jump in pitstops and strategy and that was key today because overtaking was too difficult. You started sliding more, losing temperature, so it was very difficult to follow."