Lewis Hamilton rues missed podium opportunity after crash

The McLaren driver came into contact with Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi into the braking zone for Les Combes, having just passed the Japanese up the hill for fourth position.

The collision made Hamilton's car snap left and hit the barrier hard before careering up the run-off area.

"I'm not really quite sure [what happened] to be honest." Hamilton told the BBC. "I just remember hitting in the wall - I hit the wall pretty hard.

"A bit unfortunate for the team - we were in a good position and as far as I was concerned I was ahead of whoever it was I was racing and then I just got hit by them and that was my race over. That's motor racing. There has been a lot of races where we haven't finished this year, so that's just another one of them."

Hamilton added that he thought it would have been difficult to contend for the win and said that he was struggling to follow the two Red Bulls and Fernando Alonso's Ferrari ahead of him.

"I think we were struggling," he said. "For whatever reason we were massively slow on the straight, massively, massively slow and I guess that's really what got us in the position really.

"Everyone was just pulling away from me on the straights and I was only able to keep up on the infield. I think we probably had a little bit too much downforce on. Nonetheless we were in a good position still - we were still able to challenge and I got past one of the Ferraris. We maybe have been able to have at least got a podium."