Romain Grosjean believes there was little action he could take to avoid causing♛ a multi-car crash at the start of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix despite being hit with a grid penalty by the Formula 1 race stewards for the incident.

Grosjean lost c🦂ontrol of his car after catching a p♑ocket of dirty air through the long right-hander at Turn 3 on the opening lap of the race, spinning into the path of the oncoming pack.

The Haas driver collided with b🐻oth Nico Hulkenberg andꦛ Pierre Gasly, forcing all three drivers to retire from the race.

Hulkenberg was particularly unimpressed by the incid♛ent, saying Grosjean needed to take a look in the mirror over his actions, while the F1 race stewards also hit the Frenchman with a three-place grid drop for 🌞the Monaco Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.

However, Grosjean felt there was n▨ot much he could have done to avoid hitting any of the drivers passing through.

“I don’t think there was 𒐪much I could do. If I had braked, the car would have slid anyway,” Grosjean sai🍸d.

“I tried to🔯 stay on the throttle to spin it and at least not face a lot of people. I didn’t think there was much in it. I think it was a human reflex.

“If you look at [Nico] Rosberg in Malaysia in 2016 and [Sebastian] Vettel did something similar before too, so if I had braked, I would have stayed in the middle, and 🐈the same thing would have happened.

“Unfortunately when the car started 𒐪to go fo🐽rward and onto the track, it was very difficult.”

Haas team boss Gunther Steiner was quick to criticise the stewa💞rds’ call, ec💮hoing Grosjean’s belief he had done all he could to avoid the crash.

“He tried to get out of the way, that it his explanation. He tried to get acro🌊ss the track to get🍷 out of it and he hit two,” Steiner said.

“He turn🎶ed and he said: ‘I had a decision to make, do I stand still or do I go through?’ He went through and he knocked two out. If he had stood still maybe he would have knocked five out, we don’t know. It’s never a good position to be in, the middle of⛄ a car track, whatever you do.

“For me, it’s a start incident and whatever you do afterwards will be w👍rong. If you go back into the track into the middle, you try to get out of it somehow, I don’t know what would have happened if he had stayed in the middle taken five cars out. Maybe they would have liked that better?”