“It wasn't your fault” - Lewis Hamilton and George Russell share a warm hug post-race after colliding in the opening lap of the Qatar Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton accepted full responsibility after colliding with Mercedes teammate George Russell in the Qatar Grand Prix opening lap on Sunday night.

The seven-time world champion started the race from P3 behind his teammate and Max Verstappen but got the better getaway starting from the cleaner side of the grid.

The tow he got from Max Verstappen helped him and Hamilton was braver on the brakes but turned in too quickly on the apex of turn one and ended up hitting Russell which took him out of the race and left his teammate with a damaged car.

However, Lewis Hamilton after looking at the replays accepted his mistake and took full responsibility for the incident. After the race in a video shared by the Mercedes F1 team on social media, he went on to apologize to George Russell and said:

"Sorry about today, it wasn't your fault. Great job."

Lewis Hamilton analyzes his incident with George Russell on the opening lap

The Brit claimed that he was sorry for the team as it was a good opportunity for them to score some good points and break away from Ferrari in the championship battle for P2.

Speaking with Sky Sports, Lewis Hamilton said:

"I just feel really sorry for my team. It was an opportunity today to get some good points. In the heat of the moment, I didn't really understand what happened, I just obviously felt the tap from behind. But I don't think George probably had anywhere to go and, yeah, it's just one of those really unfortunate situations."

"I mean, I'm happy to take responsibility as the older one. I've watched the replay and it was 100 percent my fault and I take full responsibility. Apologies to my team and to George."

Hamilton pointed out that the relationship between the drivers wasn't broken and they will continue to work together to drive the team forward, adding:

"The relationship isn't broken. I don't have any problems with George, we have a great relationship, we work and we always talk about things. So this is definitely unfortunate and I'm sure he was frustrated at the moment like I was. But we will talk about it offline and we move forward.

George Russell calmly accepted Lewis Hamilton's apology post-race after he finished P4 in the race. It would have been fascinating to see where both drivers would have finished had they not collided with each other.