Hamilton describes 'painful' Dutch GP crash: 'Complete surprise'

Lewis Hamilton admitted that his "painful" race-ending crash at the Dutch Grand Prix came as a "complete surprise".

The seven-time World Champion looked set for a decent haul of points around the Zandvoort Circuit after displaying solid pace over the weekend and closing the performance deficit to his teammate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton started the 72-lap event comfortably, maintaining his starting grid position of seventh place and piling the pressure on George Russell's Mercedes of P6.

Unfortunately it all came crashing down for the Briton at Turn 3 on lap 23, quite literally, as he lost rear grip around the banking and clattered his Ferrari into the barriers.

Hamilton's First DNF of 2025

Despite looking more confident behind the wheel of his SF-25 car, Hamilton has failed to score points in the last two Grands Prix.

The veteran driver was understandably dejected after what was an avoidable crash. He provided more details of his accident to media while the race was still going on.

He said: "Yeah, I didn’t really want the undercut necessarily at that time, I was just saying that we would have to probably try and undercut them at some point.

"Yeah, I wanted to go long, and so my tyres were still feeling good. That took me by complete surprise what just happened there. I’d lost the rear end at the bank and then that was it," stated Hamilton.

Nevertheless, the 40-year-old was keen to point out the progress that he and Ferrari have made over recent months to enable him to extract the maximum out of the machinery beneath him.

• Read Also: 2025 Dutch Grand Prix - Race results

He added: "Apart from that, it’s been a really solid weekend, and we made lots of, I felt like I made progress, just overall, my approach and everything, and so to come away with nothing is definitely painful.

"I’m sad for the team as I said, because I really wanted to get those points for the team today, and I honestly felt like I had the pace on the cars ahead of me, so I was hoping to see real progress in the race, and then that happened.

"I’ll get over it by tomorrow, get back on it next week," concluded the British driver.

Hamilton's deficit to Leclerc in the Drivers' Championship remains unchanged at 42 points, after the latter also crashed out later on in the Grand Prix.

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