Kvyat, who went a lap down at the start of the race due to electronics issues, was trying to unlap himself from Magnussen after the Renault driver had made contact with the wall at Tabac.

Magnussen blocked the Russian from advancing at the Swimming Pool, but Kvyat then attempted a move down the inside of La Rascasse, which resulted in contact.

After the investigation, the stewards gave Kvyat a three-place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix - and two penalty points, making it a total of seven currently on the Russian's license.

The FIA statement said: "The driver of car #26 [Kvyat], with two small collisions, effectively created an overtaking space which in reality would not have been there if the collision had not occurred."

Kvyat blames Magnussen

However, when interviewed after the race, Kvyat said the blame on the collision laid squarely on the Dane.

"We were racing, he blocked me twice pretty strongly two corners before and we touched," Kvyat recalled.

"Next corner I tried to go on the inside again and he just blocks you completely, you know. I couldn't go through the walls, so I had to go through him.

"That was it, the incident, really. I had a couple of moves in that corner two laps before. When you find a driver who really doesn't want to let you by, sometimes this happens.

"I had nothing to lose anyway so I was going for it and he seemed to be wanting to really block me. I didn't know how it looked from the outside."

"Helpless" in the race

For the Russian, the Magnussen collision was just the icing on the cake of an already terrible grand prix.

"It was a f**king s**t day," Kvyat lamented. "I think we need to better organise for these things, we cannot just be stuck at 60kph at the start of the race.

"Unfortunately, these things happen, I understand, but like this... we cannot score good points. We had the potential to score good points, but there is no discipline.

"I can't wait to go to Canada cause I feel a bit helpless today. It's a bad feeling to be helpless. It's very painful when you lose the race before it starts."

Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov