Lewis Hamilton describes ‘painful’ Zandvoort crash after Ferrari double DNF nightmare

Lewis Hamilton said he could “count on one hand” the number of times he has made a driver error that caused a crash after his early exit from the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton’s race in Zandvoort lasted just 23 laps after he crashed into the barriers at Turn 3 in a rare moment of driver error from the experienced Ferrari man.

Lewis Hamilton reacts to costly Zandvoort crash

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

While his form has deserted him this year, Hamilton has at least kept it on track, but he picked up his first retirement of the season with a costly crash in the Netherlands.

On the crash, Hamilton said: “I lost the rear end of the bank, and that was it” before stating he could “count on one hand” the number of times he has made such a mistake in his career.

“I’m sad for the team,” he told media including PlanetF1.com. “We 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 for to see real progress in the race and then that happened.

“I feel fine mentally. I felt lots of positives. I felt like I was making progress. I was catching the car ahead and tough to handle something like that for sure.

More on Lewis Hamilton from PlanetF1.com

Lewis Hamilton crashes out of Dutch GP amid FIA investigation

Lewis Hamilton under FIA investigation as Verstappen and Norris noted at Dutch GP

“I’ve been racing for so long, I could probably count on one hand that sort of incident for me.

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

It was overall a nightmare day for Ferrari as Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc was taken out by Kimi Antonelli in lap 53, giving the Italian its first double DNF since the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix.

After having to watch the remainder of the race from the Zandvoort sand dunes, Leclerc said it was Antonelli’s fault and said the young Italian was too “aggressive.”

“It’s a mistake from Kimi,” Leclerc, who is fifth in the standings, said. “I think you’ve got to be very aggressive on a track like this to overtake, which I think he tried to be aggressive.

“Maybe it was a bit too much, and he went on to touch my rear left, and that was the end of my race. So it’s disappointing.

“I wouldn’t describe it a rookie mistake. I think it’s just a mistake which can happen the first year or the fifth year. And again, as I said, on a track like this, you need to be aggressive, but that was too much.”

Read next: Dutch GP: Piastri clinches Zandvoort win as Norris retires, Ferrari suffers double DNF