Grosjean suspended

The Belgian race stewards have handed Romain Grosjean a one-race ban following the first corner collision during Sunday's Grand Prix.

In a hectic race start, which will undoubtedly also see Williams driver Pastor Maldonado penalised for a clear jump-start, Lotus's Grosjean appeared to lose his head just moments into the race.

Grosjean jerked right alongside McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and with the Brit perilously close to the grass and the wall, Grosjean continued to drift right, hitting the McLaren who had nowhere to go.

With both cars out of control they hurtled towards the cars in front crashing into Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez's Sauber at La Source.

Due to the severity of the incident, the race stewards have handed Grosjean a hefty €50,000 fine and banned him from taking part in the Italian Grand Prix.

“The stewards regard this incident as an extremely serious breach of the regulations which had the potential to cause injury to others, It eliminated leading championship contenders from the race. a statement released by the FIA on formula1.com.

'The stewards note the team conceded the action of the driver was an extremely serious mistake and an error of judgement. Neither the team nor the driver made any submission in mitigation of penalty.”

The incident clearly angered Lewis Hamilton who gestured to the Lotus driver after getting out of his wrecked McLaren, but the 2008 Formula One World Champion refused to speak to the press about the crash after the race.

Double World Champion Fernando Alonso however was happy to discuss the crash.

'I'm disappointed because of the points lost, But I'm also lucky that I can be in the car in five days at Monza because looking at the image, we were turning in so you could have a problem with your hands or even your head because [Grosjean's] car was so close.' Alonso told Autosport Magazine.

'I think we broke everything on top of the car. It was lucky in that aspect.'

'I stayed in the car for a few seconds because I had back pain, Then there was a little bit of fire so they came with extinguishers and I decided to jump out because I could not breathe with all the smoke there.'