Lewis Hamilton explains “painful” F1 Dutch GP crash: “Took me by surprise”

Lewis Hamilton says his race-ending crash at the Dutch Grand Prix took him completely by surprise.

The seven-time world champion was running seventh and hunting down former Mercedes teammate George Russell when he lost control of his Ferrari and slammed into the Turn 3 barriers on Lap 23 of Sunday’s race at Zandvoort.

Lewis Hamilton, who is enduring a nightmare first campaign with Ferrari, admitted the premature end to his grand prix was “painful”.

“I didn’t really want the undercut, necessarily at that time. I was just saying that we’d have to probably try and undercut them at some point,” Hamilton told reporters at Zandvoort, where Crash.net are on the ground.

“I wanted to go long. So my tyres were still feeling good. Just took me by complete surprise what happened now, I lost the rear up the bank, and that was it.

“I was hoping to save it, but I didn’t.”

The 40-year-old Briton added: “I’m sad for the team, as I said, because I really wanted to get those points for the team today.

“I honestly felt like I had the pace in the cars ahead of me. I was hoping to see real progress in the race.”

Lewis Hamilton positive despite crash at F1 Dutch Grand Prix

Despite the crash, Hamilton is keen to focus on the positive progress he felt he made across the Zandvoort weekend.

Hamilton was in a more chipper mood after reaching Q3 and qualifying seventh, feeling  he had taken a step forward with his SF-25.

“Apart from that, it’s been a really solid weekend,” Hamilton said.

“I feel like I made progress, just overall, and my approach and everything. To come away with nothing is definitely painful.

“I feel fine mentally, I’ve felt lots of positives. I felt I was making progress, I was catching the car ahead. It’s tough to have a result like that for sure.

“But I’ve been racing for so long, I’ve had god knows how many races. You can probably count on one hand that sort of incident.” 

Lewis Hamilton: Ferrari 'made progress'

Hamilton was returning to racing at Zandvoort for the first time since his worrying interview in Hungary, when he called himself 'useless' and urged Ferrari to replace him.

Despite a first failure to finish a grand prix in a Ferrari, Hamilton is taking positives home.

He explained his DNF to Sky Sports with the grand prix still continuing in his absence.

"As I went up the bend, the rear snapped out, and I couldn’t recover," he told Rachel Brookes.

But he reiterated that he was taking positives home from the Netherlands.

"I mean, yeah. It was a bit twitchy, the car," he said.

"But we made the real progress this weekend. My pace was looking pretty decent.

"I was catching George. I think I had the pace of the cars ahead of me.

"It’s very unusual to not finish a race, and so early. Definitely not great."