Lewis Hamilton admitted to being "incredibly disappointed" with himself for crashing out of Friday's Austrian GP qualifying session, the Mercedes driver also apologizing to his team for the mishap.
Hamilton had displayed a strong pace in the first two segments of the sprint race qualifying session and appeared to carry his momentum into Q3.
The seven-time world champion logged in a good time at the start of the shootout but as he upped the pace, his Mercedes swapped ends as he charged through the Red Bull Ring's Turn 7, the W13 veering off course and into the outside barriers with a solid thump.
“I’m incredibly disappointed in myself, ultimately," a defeated Hamilton told F1 TV.
"I’m so sorry to the team, everyone worked so hard to put this car together and I never like to bring it back damaged."
To add insult to injury, George Russell, who qualified fifth, also lost control of his silver arrow just minutes after the session had resumed following the red flag period devoted to evacuating Hamilton's car.
It was certainly an uncharacteristic and painful strike out for the Brackley squad, and one that Hamilton had difficulty rapping his head around, with no explanation for his car's sudden loss of mid-corner grip.
"We were fighting for top three, I think," he added. "I don’t have an answer to it, I just lost the back end in Turn 7 and that was that."
Looking ahead to Saturday's sprint race that will determine the order of the grid on race day, based on his pre-crash pace in Q3, Hamilton was overall hopeful of a good showing in the 30-minute mad dash that he will start from P10.
"I’m encouraged, of course, to see our performance," he said. "We weren’t expecting to be as close as that today so that’s a huge positive.
"But I’m really quite far back. I don’t know what’s possible from there but we have a sprint race as well so I hope that tomorrow I can make up for some lost time."
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff played down his team's botched qualifying, insisting Hamilton and Russell "shouldn’t beat themselves up because of this situation of crashing out."
"We’ve given them a car that wasn’t on par for 10 races in a row," he told Sky.
"Now we’re starting to come to terms and we’re able to drive in front and then it can happen that you just lose the car.
"I’d rather have a fast car and a qualifying like this than not having the pace to be in the top four."
Update:
Red Bull's Sergio Perez has had all his Q3 lap times deleted for leaving the track at Turn 8 during his fastest lap in Q2.
The Mexican will therefore start Saturday's sprint race from P13 while Hamilton moves up a spot to P9 on the grid.
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