Ralf says crash a racing incident

The Toyota driver and Speed made contact during the opening lap of the race.

Schumacher's car was nearly sent into a spin, but the German managed to recover it, however he got into Mark Webber's line and the Australian Williams driver crashed into him.

All three men involved in the incident retired.

"Unfortunately that was just one of those things that happen in racing," said Schumacher. "It all began with my very bad start. I lost too many positions and found myself in traffic. That's how these things can kick off because in a mess like that no one really has any space.

"I had cars all around me so it was really difficult to see exactly what happened but I was hit from behind. That sent me into a spin, which meant that I couldn't help veering into Mark's path.

"It was a racing incident and no one is to blame because no one does anything like that on purpose. But it's the second time in a row that we have struggled off the line so we should now work hard on improving that."

Toyota endured another disappointing weekend, with Jarno Trulli finishing down in 11th position after having started from the back of the grid.

The Italian, who continues without a point after eight races, was still happy with his showing.

"It was always going to be a hard day's work out there from the back of the grid, but I enjoyed it," said Trulli. "Silverstone is never the easiest place to overtake but I still made it past a lot of cars at the start and over the first three or four laps.

The car was well balanced and I was fighting really hard throughout. Thanks to the team's good strategy we were able to gain some more positions at the first pit stop.

"It's very hard to stay close to the car in front here so we couldn't really expect to score points from where we were. But nevertheless I'm happy both with my own performance and with that of the TF106B which looks like a definite step forward."