Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was devastated to crash out of the Spanish Grand Prix on lap one when he got onto the grass on the inside of the run into turn four of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The end result was a double retirement for Mercedes, which left the reigning World Champion lost for words.
“First of all, a huge apology to all of our team – when I stopped my heart just sank. To not deliver for them, it’s honestly… indescribable how gutted I was.”
Hamilton was quick to point out that his teammate was vulnerable, as the German was lacking a significant amount of power, hinting that it was the root cause of the incident.
“I got a good start but he [Rosberg] slipstreamed me into Turn 1. Then through Turn 3 he had a d-rate – basically he made a mistake and started in the wrong engine setting. We only have one setting for maximum power and he wasn’t in it, which meant he was like 180bhp down.
“I’m not getting into blame, just a huge apology to the team. I’ll do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Don’t have a good feeling this second, but we will recover.”
The Brit’s first retirement of the season means that it’s ‘as you were’ with regards to the Championship standings. Rosberg still leads his teammate by 43 points, although they are sandwiching Kimi Raikkonen, who cut Rosberg’s lead to 39 points in Barcelona.
