Renault rubbish 'brake test' suggestions

Hamilton ran into the back of Alonso as they came out of Turn Three on lap two, and there had been suspicions from some that the Briton may have been a victim of a lift off the throttle by his former teammate.

But Alonso has insisted that he does not know why Hamilton hit the back of him, and said there was no case of him employing dirty tactics.

"I think we were running too close and for sure maybe he didn't realise how close we were," said Alonso. "He jumped into my rear wing. I am sure on the first couple of laps, if you are eighth or ninth, you try to recover places too quickly."

When asked about the speculation of a brake test, Alonso said: "Well, Pat Symonds told me now that rumour, and he has printed now the data to show everybody. It is totally rubbish, but what can I do?"

Autosport.com has seen the telemetry data of Alonso's exit from the first corner, and it shows that the Spaniard was flat on the throttle from the exit, did not touch the brake and gained speed in a totally predictable manner.

Symonds, who is Renault's executive director of engineering, said that Alonso had done nothing to contribute to the accident.

"Fernando was coming out of the turn and accelerating down the straight," explained Symonds. "He reached fifth gear, at 227km/h, on full throttle, no touching of the brakes or anything like that. And you can see on the accelerometer the impact. He got hit from behind.

"I think all I can say from our side is that there is no blame attributable to Fernando, which is what some of the speculation might be. But it does say we are not getting onto the straights very well, we are suffering a bit with traction, engine speed and engine torque."

When asked about the view of some experts in the paddock who believed it could have been a brake test, Symonds said: "Well, they are not as expert as they think then. We have the data and there is nothing untoward there. You don't need to be an expert to see that."