Collision: Button and Coulthard

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• Jenson Button
• David Coulthard

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Jenson Button was left cursing his luck after he was forced to retire from the Bahrain Grand Prix after colliding with David Coulthard.

Having qualified ninth on the grid, the Honda driver had come into the race with high hopes of a first points finish of the season.

Those hopes were increased when Button was one of those to benefit when Lewis Hamilton almost stalled on the grid and climbed to eighth place.

However, both he and Coulthard then had to make early pit stops after picking up punctures on the opening lap at Sakhir.

Matters then got even worse when the pair made contact whilst duelling for 19th place on lap 20.

Button - who retired from the race soon afterwards - believes Coulthard moved his Red Bull into his path when he attempted to dive down the inside, leaving him with nowhere to go.

Nevertheless, Button was also at pains to differentiate their coming together from that suffered by Coulthard and Felipe Massa at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

"I think the problem is that he did look in his mirrors," Button told ITV.

"It was a very different accident to Felipe (Massa) because there was no gap in the end for me to overtake, but the problem was that when I started to hit the brakes there was a gap.

"Then he moved across to block the corner and by then it was too late. The way I feel, and the way that we discuss in our [GPDA] meetings is that you shouldn't move across in the braking zone and he moved, and I had nowhere to go.

"When we actually hit each other it was very late in the corner, but that was more me trying to avoid him than anything else. It wasn't an overtaking move."

Blame game

Coulthard refused to play the blame game, adding: "I was battling for position with Jenson, who was quicker.

"We got too close in one corner and had an incident, which took him out of the race and caused more damage to my car.

"I came in to the pits again and changed the front wing.

"That made the car feel a little bit better, but it wasn't a great race."

Coulthard eventually finished in 18th place, one lap down on race winner Massa.