Montoya: Villeneuve cost us 1-2.

Juan Pablo Montoya has blamed Jacques Villeneuve for allowing Renault to slip back into the constructors' championship lead, after accusing the Canadian of running him off the road on lap one at Suzuka.

Both drivers were thought to have started the Japanese Grand Prix on heavy fuels loads and were therefore desperate not to lose too much ground in the early stages, but Montoya's race came to grief when he found himself on the grass and in the barriers as the pair exited the final chicane. The Colombian had been attempting to make the most of errors ahead of him when he tried to pass Villeneuve around the outside of the final corner, but quickly found himself running out of road.

"He missed the chicane, and just started to go wider and wider and wider - until he pushed me off the circuit," Montoya seethed to Reuters, "I was 100 per cent beside him and he just pushed me and pushed me until I was on the grass. We probably could have had a one-two today, which would have been fantastic for the team."

The stewards imposed a post-race 25-second penalty on Villeneuve, which relegated the Canadian from eleventh to twelfth, but he refused to accept the blame for the incident.

"I didn't even know what happened," Villeneuve said, "He was on the outside, but not next to me. It's a right-handed corner, so you don't look left. At some point, he ran out of road. I have no idea what he might have been trying to do when he went off."