When Michael returned to the pits he was to show his annoyance over the accident by throwing his helmet in his pits. In comments to the German RTL TV network Michael said: "I don't think anyone should accuse him (Montoya) of anything intentional. But rather it was just a bit stupid of him to wrongly estimate the situation that led to a collision.

"No doubt about it that I'm a bit angry, that's logical. But in motor racing things happen that you can't predict. You've got to accept that. We've had a lot of good races in the recent past. And now it just went a bit bad for us today."

Michael tried to explain his actions in the tunnel when he braked severely, which most commentators said was quite a silly thing to do in the dark confines of the tunnel.

Michael said: "The tyres were quite cold. I tried to warm the tyres as well as brakes because we knew the Safety Car was going off. This braking and accelerating is the normal way that you do (things) to get your tyres warm.

"And when the Safety Car is in front of you you have a certain margin that you can use. It's just unfortunate and stupid what happened. I haven't really talked with him (Montoya) since Imola about anything and don't believe that I have to talk to him about anything.

Montoya responded by saying that Michael had accelerated hard and then braked equally hard.

Juan Pablo said: "I moved to the right to try and avoid him and put the car up against the wall so we wouldn't hit and we just touched.

"If he was braking that hard he should have done it in a different place - not in the middle of the tunnel. It's very hard to judge. I moved off-line to try not to hit him and he came over exactly to where I was. I didn't have anywhere else to go."

Ferrari's Technical Director Ross Brawn commented on the incident by saying: "It was very unfortunate. You don't want to go out of a race for that reason. We were informed that the Safety Car was coming in and it is normal to warm your brakes up. Juan Pablo hit the back of him.

"We had a chance of winning the race, not a great one but a chance. We had a lot of fuel left in the car and it may have been possible. It is very frustrating to go out like that."

But backing up Juan Pablo was WilliamsF1 Technical Director Patrick Head, who denied that Montoya caused the incident.

"No matter what Michael or Ross (Brawn) might think, Juan is not a dirty driver," Head said. "He knows what respecting a fellow driver is and there were no dirty tricks. Juan has said that Michael put the brakes on hard and I don't think that is a wise thing to do in a dark tunnel. The stewards have asked to see both of them."