Toto Wolff says Nico Rosberg "didn't give in" during the fight with Lewis Hamilton which ended in contact because "he needed to make a point".

Hamilton claimed Rosberg had admitted in a post-race meeting that he allowed contact to happen on purpose "to prove a point", with Hamilton suffering a puncture in the collision and losing 18 points to his team-mate as a result. While Wolff doesn't believe Rosberg deliberately caused the crash he verified Hamilton's comments that Rosberg had not been willing to avoid the incident.

"Nico felt he needed to hold his line," Wolff said. "He needed to make a point, and for Lewis, it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico. He (Rosberg) didn't give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space, and that Lewis didn't leave him space.



"So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion amongst ourselves, but it wasn't deliberately crashing. That is nonsense. It was deliberately taking into account that if Lewis moves or would open then it could end up in a crash."

And Wolff also said Rosberg should not have put his car in a position which could lead to contact.

"We had a collision that could have been avoided, a second-lap collision, it was Nico who attacked and he shouldn't have done it. It was also to show he was not prepared to give in. With hindsight, if he could turn back time, Nico would probably not do it again in the way he did."

While blaming Rosberg for the incident, Wolff said it was an unacceptable situation regardless of who was at fault.

"It doesn't change the scenario at all because the incident, as I see it, is not acceptable for us. What we saw there was that Nico was not prepared to take the exit, and that caused the collision. That is not something we want to happen."