Lotus blamed Daniel Ricciardo for the crash which eliminated both its drivers from the race on lap one, but Fernando Alonso said it was down to Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado lacking "common sense".
The two Lotus drivers collided at The Loop on lap one, forcing Alonso into evasive action and into the side of McLaren team-mate Jenson Button. The collision triggered the safety car and saw both Lotus drivers and Button retire, while Alonso needed a new front wing at the end of the first lap.
Grosjean had appeared to react to the late-braking Red Bull of Ricciardo down the inside by moving to the left, into team-mate Maldonado, and Lotus said the Australian was the catalyst for the accident.
"Both Romain and Pastor were the victims of over-exuberance at the start of the race meaning that both returned to the garage for a very short debrief after only a lap on track," said Nick Chester, the team's technical director.
Grosjean added: "That was a very short race for the team and I feel for everyone here at Silverstone and at Enstone. Daniel must have thought his brakes and tyres would be able to slow him better than they did and the result was the end of both my and Pastor's race."
However Alonso had a rather different take on it, accusing both Lotus drivers of being "far too aggressive" and lacking common sense.
"It was an unbelievable start - especially in Turn 3," Alonso said. "Far too aggressive, the two Lotus', they came into Turn 3 fighting each other, braking super late. They touched each other and then to avoid them I had half a spin until I touched Jenson as well. One McLaren out and I think both Lotus' out - so definitely not common sense on that corner."
Button added: "I've just been watching the video and it looks like there are two [Lotus] cars who having a bit of an incident on the apex of Turn 3. Fernando has tried to miss them and I think he's lost the rear and just clipped my rear tyre and the impact has turned the car off so the engine was not running so it stopped."
After the race, the stewards confirmed no further action would be taken.
A statement read: "After hearing from all the drivers involved in the Turn 3 incident at the start of the race, it was decided that no driver was wholly or predominately to blame."