• Canadian Grand Prix

Massa clash was a racing accident - Liuzzi

Tonio Liuzzi and Felipe Massa lock wheels © Getty Images

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• Race:
• Canadian Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Tonio Liuzzi
• |
• Felipe Massa
• |
• Adrian Sutil

• Teams:
• Racing Point

Tonio Liuzzi believes his first lap clash with Felipe Massa at the Canadian Grand Prix was a racing accident but admitted it cost him dear.

Liuzzi and Massa came together in the first corner after the Ferrari got a better start and Liuzzi was left on the inside with nowhere to go. Despite having to pit for a new nose cone after the incident, Liuzzi came storming through the field to finish ninth and secure two points. However, he was left wondering what could have been after he started from fifth position.

"It was a tough race and I drove every lap pushing so hard," he said. "The team deserved to get a good result after the hard work they have done this weekend and in the past weeks on the developments. We should ultimately have had more points than we got in the end, but it's always OK to get another few points on board, particularly after the last race when they seemed so far away. Unfortunately we lost a big part of the race as the door was closed on me in the first corner by Felipe. It was a race accident as Jenson was on the other side and there wasn't anything I could do - I was on the inside and holding my line. We lost the front wing and had to change the strategy then and there, but in the end we still got some points."

After struggling with rear-end grip since the Spanish Grand Prix, Liuzzi reverted to using his old chassis this weekend to solve the problem. He said the result in Canada proved the team was capable of scoring points when everything was working as it should.

"The team is pushing like hell and we want to confirm the progress we've made with more results," he said. "Today showed we're strongly in the top 10 and - more importantly - we will never give up."

Adrian Sutil finished one place behind Liuzzi after the pair pulled audacious overtaking manoeuvres on Michael Schumacher on the final lap. He too reflected on a tough race.

"Like Tonio, it was a pretty hard race," Sutil said. "At the start I was racing Kubica and it seemed we could have got into the top five again, but then we touched and I got a puncture. Unfortunately it was at the first corner so I had to drive the whole lap back to the pits. I lost a lot of time like this and dropped out of the top ten, and then had to fight my way past Hulkenberg and then Schumacher to get back in the points. At the end of the race we knew Michael had some problems with his tyres so I really pushed to close the gap and I just got past him on the last corner to get the final point. Of course I'm disappointed as I think we could have got some serious points here today but I think I drove well, the car was good and we were fast the whole race."

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