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Adrian Sutil and Pastor Maldonado have blamed each other for their first lap clash at the United States Grand Prix.

The pair made contact on the back straight as Maldonado pulled alongside, pitching Sutil into the barrier and out of the race. Sutil was leading the pair but appeared to move across ever so slightly on the Williams, although both had plenty of space to either side.

"For some reason I got hit on the straight from Maldonado on my left rear tyre and lost control completely," Sutil explained. "He spun me around and I crashed into the barrier, which is a shame because it's a very wide track here and there's no reason to collide on a straight line.

"It's always hard to say whose fault it is, but I was on my line and didn't do any crazy moves. There was a lot of space on the left and on the right and I don't understand why someone is so close to a car that he actually hits you. It's not as if we were side-by-side. His front tyre hit my rear axle and although it was a little touch at 330km/h you don't want to have those things.

"I lost my race because of that. We've had many incidents with this driver so maybe you just have to have an emergency area around him to avoid these kinds of things."

Maldonado said it was a racing incident.

"It was quite strange, I didn't expect that contact. We were side-by-side and I was losing out a little bit in terms of speed and I think he didn't see me or thought he was fully ahead. It was my front wing there and we touched. It's normal and it can happen, it's nothing against him. It's very difficult to see when a car is like that and it's happened to me as well in the past. It's nothing really important."

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