Hamilton and Perez made contact as they raced wheel to wheel through Turns 14 and 15 at Spa, with the Mercedes driver's front wheel punching a big hole in the Red Bull sidepod.

The seven-time world champion was handed a five-second time penalty after being found "predominantly at fault" by the stewards, which dropped him from fourth to seventh in the final classification.

Perez was eventually forced to retire as he was passed by several cars immediately after the incident and also went off in the gravel as he struggled in his damaged RB19.

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"He was pretty slow and went wide and slow through 14," Hamilton explained to Sky Sports F1.

"I got a great exit, I was more than half a car alongside him and we just ended up coming together.

"It was a bit of a racing incident really. Naturally it wasn't intentional but they (the stewards) saw it differently.

"It was very tricky conditions out there, so we were all trying our best.

"Anyways it doesn't make a huge difference, fourth or seventh in the Sprint you don't get a lot of points."

Perez said of the incident: "Lewis just crashed into me and took the whole right-hand side of my car off so we basically lost all of the load.

"Unfortunately that meant no points today."

Brundle: Penalty for Hamilton was "harsh"

Hamilton told Sky Italy that he had "no regrets" about the move on Perez and the subsequent five-second penalty was described as "harsh" by Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle

"I thought it was a racing incident. I thought the penalty was harsh, I'll stand by that," Brundle said.

"Lewis had claimed the corner. There was an error before the corner before by Perez and he was on the inside. Yes, the car did understeer a little bit. I don't know what is racing if that's not racing and therefore a racing incident.

"It wasn't Lewis launching an impossible move. He was on the inside of the corner. It did take Checo out of the race, so we have to consider that as well and it was definitely the Mercedes sliding left rather than the Red Bull pinching him so I understand what the stewards have done, but I would want to call that a racing incident.

"Lewis can't disappear at that moment. He's claimed the corner. What's he going to do?"

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff also felt his driver had been wrongly penalised.

"Absolute racing incident. This is a Sprint race, we want to see them racing," Wolff said.

"The argument of the damage isn't valid because he was going backwards before then, massively backwards.

"And I think when you look at that corner, they were side-by-side and fair enough, it takes two to tango, but it's a racing incident.

"For me that's pretty clear."

Hamilton criticises Mercedes for Sprint Shootout confusion

Earlier Hamilton felt he had the pace to finish on the front row in the Sprint Shootout, but was slowed up by team-mate George Russell on his final flying lap on a drying Spa track.

Russell locked up at Turn One and then was in the way of his team-mate down the Kemmel Straight, but Hamilton was critical of his team for putting the two drivers in the wrong position.

"We're not happy about it obviously," Hamilton said after the Shootout, in which he had led the timesheet after the first SQ3 runs.

"I reckon I could have been first or second on that last lap. Communication was pretty poor, it was difficult to understand. We got to the last corner and there were seven cars trundling around.

"We thought we didn't have any more time left which was why we were pushing but it turns out we had plenty of time.

"With George…it's the way it is. It doesn't really matter."

Wolff admitted Mercedes need to improve their game and show more precision in such moments in future.

"I think between the drivers, both of them and the interaction and the team, we just need to ramp up our game. In these situations where it's about crossing the line in tough conditions, we've just got to have some precision," the Mercedes boss said.

"Very quickly, you can look very good, very intelligent and very bad. To give you an example, if these two don't tangle in the way they do, Max would have missed the final lap.

"Having said that, that's not the driver we should be focused on, but ourselves. We had the time to give them both a proper launch and Lewis was on provisional pole the lap before and ended up P7.

"All of us together, that shouldn't be happening."

Sky Sports F1's live Belgian GP schedule

Sunday July 30
7.25am: Formula 3 Feature Race
8.55am: Formula 2 Feature Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday - Belgian GP build-up
2pm: THE BELGIAN GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag - Belgian GP reaction
5pm: Ted's Notebook

Watch all sessions of the Sprint weekend at Spa live on Sky Sports F1. Stream the Belgian GP and more with NOW.