Sebastian Vettel now says that he was too far behind Fernando Alonso’s accident in Barcelona to have seen what happened – and he insists that he only caught the end of it.

Earlier comments from Vettel to the effect that the car was going slowly when it suddenly turned right fed conspiracy theories in the days following Sunday’s accident.

However a video taken at Turn One on the lap that Alonso crashed showed that Vettel had gone wide, let Alonso past and returned to the track some distance behind the McLaren, suggesting that he was still some way behind when the accident started.

Today Vettel was asked if the wind was strong enough to put a car off line.

“Yes I think it was,” he replied. “I think Carlos [Sainz] had an accident where he lost the car. It was very windy on that day. I’m not sure what exactly happened. I was right behind, but didn’t really see. I was a bit too late, so I couldn’t see how the accident started. I only saw the last bit where he was hitting the wall. But what happened before, I don’t know, I can’t judge whether he lost the car with the wind or not.

“I went straight away after it happened to see the McLaren people, and basically told them what I saw, and asked if Fernando was OK. At this stage we didn’t know. Obviously still shocking to hear that he still needs to recover, but the most important thing right now is that in general he is fine.”