Another day, another spot of controversy as Hamilton crashes out

It was following last year’s Belgian Grand Prix that Whitmarsh described Sebastian Vettel as “the crash kid”, after the German wrecked Jenson Button’s race by spearing into the side of the Briton’s car.

This season, however, Hamilton has been embroiled in a series of incidents, the sum total of which have cost him countless points, and effectively mean his slim title hopes are almost over for this year.

The latest came on lap 13 of the race at Spa-Francorchamps, a circuit where Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull won for the first time to leave Hamilton trailing by 113 points with 175 available.

Approaching the end of the Kemmel straight, the front-right tyre on the Sauber driven by Kamui Kobayashi hit the left-rear on Hamilton’s car at speed.

The impact led to the 26-year-old Briton ploughing nose-first into a crash barrier, then careering through a polystyrene advertising hoarding before continuing on for a short distance and grinding to a halt.

The belief is Hamilton veered across slightly on Kobayashi without checking on the position of the Japanese driver.

Not for the first time Whitmarsh stood up for Hamilton as he said: “Everyone will have an opinion on what happened.

“He didn’t go right over to the racing line, but had to get over to that part of the track.

“He was extremely unlucky because if you are behind the emphasis is on you not to make a connection quite as hard as that.

“Anyway, it was one of those things, but then it’s been one of those weekends, one of those seasons.”

Assessing the incident from his own perspective, Hamilton said: “I’m not really quite sure what happened other than hitting the wall pretty hard.

“As far as I’m concerned I was ahead of whoever I was racing and then I was hit by them from behind and that was my race over.

“This is motor racing. There has been a lot of races we (McLaren) haven’t finished this year, and this is another one of them.”

In assessing his title chances now, Hamilton’s response was clear and succinct as he said: “The championship wasn’t ours anyway.”

As for Kobayashi, he feels Hamilton was at fault as he said: “After he overtook me it was not my intention to get my position back, so I stayed on my line and didn’t expect him to move over.”

The incident brought out the safety car due to the level of debris, and was the culmination of an eventful opening 12 laps in which the lead changed hands a number of times.

After it, Vettel went on claim his 17th career win, and the 10th one-two with team-mate Mark Webber who finished second for the second successive year at Spa, leaving the Australian 92 points down in the drivers’ title race.

From 13th on the grid, and 19th following an early pit stop, Jenson Button grabbed another podium place to leave Whitmarsh describing him as “the driver of the day”.

Button, though, is 110 points behind Vettel, while Fernando Alonso is 102 adrift after the Spaniard finished fourth. Michael Schumacher celebrated his 20th anniversary of his F1 debut in fine style by finishing fifth in his Mercedes after starting at the back of the grid. Williams’ Pastor Maldonado collected his first point of the year for 10th, one place ahead of Force India’s Paul di Resta.