Furious Alesi slams Trulli

Trulli lost control of his Prost on the way into turn one when he had to swerve suddenly to avoid Heinz-Harald Frentzen's slow-starting Jordan.

The wayward Prost slammed sideways into Alesi and Rubens Barrichello's Stewart.

Alesi said: 'In the past we had no rules, and drivers could zig-zag and block and nothing was done.

'But now we have a commission which watches us to see that what we do is correct. I don't know what happened to Trulli before he hit me and I don't particularly care, but every start it seems he does something like this.

'There are people whose job it is to judge drivers like this, and it is time that they gave them some really heavy sentences.'

Team boss Peter Sauber added: 'Jean had high expectations today and felt very optimistic, but the accident with Trulli needs no further explanation. I hope that the FIA will punish him so hard that he will come to his senses for future races.'

Rubens Barrichello was also unimpressed.

'It was a pretty big impact, it even took out a piece of my helmet,' he said. 'I think it was a dangerous move. I tried to carry on but the car was undriveable.'

Trulli defended himself however.

'I took the decision not to make an aggressive start because the exit from the first corner is very important,' he explained. 'Unfortunately Frentzen hit the brakes unexpectedly in front of me and to avoid him I was obliged to brake hard myself and I spun off.

'I completely lost control of my car. I am truly sorry to have hit the other cars who were there. We were not even fighting.

'At the end of the race, I went with my team manager to see the race director to clarify the situation with the help of the TV images and they confirmed I was not responsible for the accident.'