Lewis Hamilton was accused of being "dangerous and disrespectful" in reviving his F1 title defense as he won the British Grand Prix on Sunday after a first lap crash that left championship leader Max Verstappen complaining he had been "taken out."

Mercedes driver Hamilton retorted after the race that he would "not be bullied."

Roared on by a crowd of more than 140,000, Hamilton attempted to overtake Red Bull Racing's Verstappen on Copse corner on the first lap.

Verstappen refused to yield. The two touched wheels and the Red Bull car went careening off the track and into the barrier. Hamilton drove on with just a broken wheel rim.

"Glad I'm ok," Verstappen tweeted from hospital, where he was taken for checks. "Very disappointed with being taken out like this."

His boss Christian Horner, the Red Bull Racing team principal, also laid into Hamilton who won his home race for the eighth time.

"I hope Lewis is very happy with himself," said Horner. "That's a hollow victory."

"Copse is one of the fastest corners in the world. You don't stick a wheel up the inside. That's just dirty driving."

Hamilton, in comments posted on Formula 1.com, said of the crash with Verstappen however: "I tried to give him the space but I was quite a long way up the inside into 9 and none of us backed out and that was the end result."

"I dummied him, moved to the right for that gap and I was pretty far up alongside him but I then could see he wasn't going to back out, and we went into the corner, and we collided," he added.

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff, added: "It always takes two to tango, and these two are not giving each other an inch."

"It's a high-speed corner. These things are nasty to look at, but there is a clear regulation and that is something that is black and white on paper and as a racing driver, you may have different perspectives from the car, but you need to exactly understand that if the front axle is over the middle of the car on the outside, it's your corner," Wolff added.

F1's governing body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), later investigated the incident and ruled that Hamilton was to blame with a 10-second time penalty.

"The stewards reviewed video and telemetry evidence," the stewards said. "Cars 33 (Verstappen) and 44 (Hamilton) entered Turn 9 with Car 33 in the lead and Car 44 slightly behind and on the inside."

"Car 44 was on a line that did not reach the apex of the corner, with room available to the inside. When Car 33 turned into the corner, Car 44 did not avoid contact and the left front of Car 44 contacted the right rear of Car 33. Car 44 is judged predominantly at fault," the stewards ruled. 

In other comments posted on Formula1.com, Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc, who finished second, noted: "It is very difficult to judge it from the car. We are very low, so it's difficult to see. Everything went very quick, there were quite a few things going on around me. I think it's a racing incident, it's very difficult to put the blame on one or the other."

Valtteri Bottas, who had allowed his Mercedes teammate to pass after the penalty, said: "I saw them fight on Lap 1... I had a feeling something was going to happen."

"That kind of thing it happens – that's racing. It can happen when you fight hard, when you don't give up, but also I'm just happy Max is fine because it was a big shunt. But also I really feel that Lewis fully deserved the win today," he added. 

(With input from agencies)