Hinchcliffe critical of Yoong

The 19-year-old was leading the feature race after the pitstops, but Yoong had closed in from being five seconds behind, and when he went for the lead the pair made contact.

While Yoong carried on to take his second victory of the day for Malaysia, Hinchcliffe spun, and then couldn't hold off the chasing pack, dropping him to fifth.

"Alex wasn't alongside me enough to make the pass," said Hinchcliffe. "He hit me and I spun out."

The Champ Car Atlantic racer admitted that he was aware of the performance advantage Yoong had over him, but felt the ex-F1 driver should have been more patient.

"He clearly had the faster car towards the end, we were both the class of the field, but it was the wrong place to make a move," he added.

Yoong felt he was just being opportunistic, as he spotted a slight error from the young driver.

"I had a few attempts at overtaking him before I made it stick," he said, "then he got on the dirty stuff and I could see he was struggling.

"He'd done well up until then, but he ran wide and I dived up the inside. We both could have made it round the corner, but he turned in.

"He was trying to close the door on me, but I was already alongside and we made contact. That's motor racing."