Lewis Hamilton admits crashing out of the Dutch Grand Prix was a painful approach to finish what had been a weekend of progress for him and Ferrari.
A tricky race in Hungary noticed Hamilton significantly downbeat heading into the summer time break, however he was on the tempo with Charles Leclerc in Zandvoort, qualifying simply 0.05s behind his teammate. When operating behind George Russell early within the race, Hamilton instructed an undercut after Leclerc pitted, however slid extensive at Flip 3 and hit the barrier, retiring for the primary time in his Ferrari profession.
“No, I didn’t [necessarily] need the undercut at the moment,” Hamilton mentioned. “I used to be simply saying that we’d need to most likely try to undercut them sooner or later. I wished to go lengthy, so my tires had been nonetheless feeling good. I simply… Yeah, took me by full shock what occurred; I misplaced the rear up the financial institution, and that was it.
“Aside from that, it’s been a extremely strong weekend. I really feel like I made progress, simply general, and my method and all the pieces. To return away with nothing is certainly painful.”
Whereas Hamilton says he’s disenchanted to not rating factors for Ferrari this weekend, he says the crash gained’t knock his confidence as he feels it’s a uncommon mistake from his standpoint.
“I really feel OK,” he mentioned. “I’m unhappy for the crew, as a result of I actually wished to get these factors for the crew immediately, and I actually felt like I had the tempo within the vehicles forward of me. I hoped to see actual progress within the race.
“Really feel wonderful mentally. I’ve felt numerous positives, I felt I used to be making progress, I used to be catching the automobile forward. It’s powerful to have a end result like that for positive, however I’ve been racing for therefore lengthy. I’ve had God is aware of what number of races. You may most likely depend on one hand that type of incident.”
Teammate Leclerc additionally had a tricky afternoon, as he was taken out later within the race by Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, because the pair battled over what was set to be fifth place following pit stops.
“It is a mistake from Kimi,” Leclerc mentioned. “I believe you have to be very aggressive on a monitor like this to overhaul, which I believe he tried to be aggressive. Perhaps it was a bit an excessive amount of. He went on to the touch my rear left, and that was the top of my race. It is disappointing…
“Would not describe it a rookie mistake. I believe it is only a mistake which might occur the primary 12 months or the fifth 12 months. Once more, as I mentioned, on a monitor like this, you may must be aggressive, however that was an excessive amount of.”
