Ferrari suffered a nightmare day at the Dutch Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton crashed out on his own before team-mate Charles Leclerc was taken out later on by Kimi Antonelli
Lewis Hamilton has admitted it is “very unusual” for him to crash out of a race. The Ferrari driver said he did not know why he crashed during the Dutch Grand Prix in a bizarre incident which saw the Brit lose control of his car on the banked third corner of the Zandvoort track.
Rain had been falling in the minutes leading up to the incident and replays showed the Ferrari understeered onto a painted section just off the circuit. He appeared to lose all grip and buried the side of his car into the barrier, snapping off his front-right wheel.
But Hamilton was not ready to say that it was the definitive cause of his crash as he spoke to Sky Sports in the media pen while the race was still ongoing. He said: “I’m really not sure, I’ll have to look back at it. As I went up the bank, the rear snapped out and I couldn’t recover it.”
Despite that, Hamilton seemed pleased with his his car had felt up to that point. He finished a lowly 12th in Budapest four weeks ago, the last race before the summer break, but was running seventh at the time of his crash and close behind George Russell in the Mercedes.
Hamilton said: “It was a bit twitchy, the car, but I think we made real progress this weekend and the pace was looking pretty decent. I was catching George and I think I had the pace of a few cars ahead of me, but very unusual to not finish a race and to go out so early is definitely not great, but it is what it is.”
The timing of the crash was also unhelpful for his team-mate Charles Leclerc, who had only just stopped for fresh tyres when Hamilton lost control. That meant others were able to change tyres while losing less time behind the safety car and Russell came out ahead of the other Ferrari.
That then sparked a furious duel between them, which culminated in Leclerc slipping up the inside of the Mercedes to retake fifth place. But Russell complained that his rival had cut to corner to get that move done and the stewards decided that the incident would be investigated after the race.
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