Hamilton claimed second place despite incurring a drive-through penalty after illegally passing the safety car deployed following Mark Webber's crash.

Alonso had been tailing Hamilton before the incident but the Ferrari driver went on to finish only eighth, leaving team boss Stefano Domenicali, President Luca di Montezemolo and vice-president Piero Ferrari to register their anger at events in Valencia.

And Alonso added fuel to the flames by slamming Hamilton for failing to respect the rules of Formula One.

But asked if Alonso's comments were a case of sour grapes, Hamilton replied: "Yeah.

"I even saw him overtaken by a Sauber on the big screen (referring to Kamui Kobayashi's pass on Alonso on the penultimate lap).

Opinion

"It's very unlike him to be overtaken by a Sauber so he must have been completely in another world. But I don't understand why I affected his race so much.

"Everyone has a right to their opinion, and he must be disappointed with his own result, but I didn't do anything to him."

Naturally defending Hamilton, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: "If you look at the incident itself it was very, very difficult to avoid what happened.

"It was minuscule, and so it goes to the stewards and they made a decision.

"That is pretty normal in my experience of motor racing, but Fernando may have a different set of experiences."

Material: skysports.com