Michael Schumacher penalised for Bruno Senna clash

Michael Schumacher has been hit with a five-place grid penalty for the next race in Monaco after a collision with Bruno Senna in Spain.

The seven-time champion's Mercedes ran into the back of Senna's Williams, taking both out of the race.

The race stewards decided Schumacher had caused a collision that took Senna out of the race.

Schumacher had initially claimed that the incident was the Brazilian's fault for moving in the braking zone.

"If you look at the overhead shot you can see he moves right to defend his position and then in the braking point he moves left," Schumacher said. "And I couldn't avoid him.

"It's in the braking phase. I'm very much annoyed about that. In Brazil (last year there was) a strange manoeuvre from him, and just before (in this race) he had an incident with (Lotus driver Romain) Grosjean. I don't know what happened there."

Senna, who had had a minor brush with Grosjean the lap before the crash with Schumacher, said: "He's not going to say it's his own fault.

"He had much newer tyres than me. I guess our braking points are quite different then. I saw Romain Grosjean braking quite late and hitting me. I didn't want Michael to do the same. When I tried to brake he hit me.

"I had old tyres - of course his braking point was going to be much later than mine.

"I wasn't going to resist too much, I left him just enough room to the inside.

"I moved a bit left because I thought he was going to the inside. I never thought he'd go to the outside."

The incident and penalty will pile more pressure on Schumacher, who in the third year of his comeback to the sport has had the worst start to a season in his career.