Fernando Alonso has revealed he too suffered a puncture when he collided with Felipe Massa in the closing stages of the United States Grand Prix but was able to get to the chequered flag without it hampering him.

The Spaniard was making good headway in the closing stages of the Texas race when he came up on the battle for fifth between Carlos Sainz and Massa. Wasting no time in making his presence felt, Alonso caught Massa unawares into the turn 16 left-hander, prompting the pair to clash wheels.

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With Massa suffering a puncture that would force him to pit on the penultimate lap - albeit without the loss of position -, the Brazilian driver was later upset stewards decided it was a racing incident and handed out no punishment at the McLaren.

Alonso, however, has revealed he also came close to disaster in the contact after breaking a tyre rim that was causing a slow puncture. Despite this, he did get the better of Sainz on the penultimate lap to finish fifth.

"The movement and the commitment that you have to do is quite big because you know the risks that are on this manoeuvre.

"But I braked very late on purpose just because of that, because I wanted to put the car alongside him or in front of him because if not then he can't see me. So I braked very late for that reason. Unfortunately we touched each other, he had a puncture, I had a slow puncture as well with a tyre rim broken, so very, very lucky."

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Describing the incident as 'unfortunate', Alonso played down the reaction of his former Ferrari team-mate afterwards.

"I think it's OK. Obviously we always fight on the track and unfortunately this time we touched two cars and one was with a puncture. I remember many incidents this year that both cars continued running and everything was OK but unfortunately one of the two had a puncture."

"It's a race incident and everyone has maybe similar opinions or at least the stewards have that opinion so there is not much to talk about."

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