Hamilton: I’m really not sure what happened

Hamilton was in seventh place when he lost control of his car in the middle of the banked turn three on lap 23 and slid into the barriers, triggering a safety car deployment at Zandvoort.

"I'm so sorry guys," the Briton radioed to his team after confirming he was unhurt.

Minutes earlier he had suggested pitting to try and get ahead of Mercedes' George Russell but the safety car period allowed all the leaders to come in and change tyres without losing time.

Lando Norris, running second for champions McLaren, asked his race engineer Will Joseph whether Hamilton's crash was caused by the white line becoming slippery with some light rainfall.

On being told it was, Norris said that was 'race-ending' information and he should have been informed about the risk earlier.

The crash meant Hamilton has now not scored for two races in a row, after finishing 12th in Hungary when he had described himself as useless.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after his retirement, Hamilton was asked what had happened; he responded: “I’m really not sure.

"I will have to look back at it. As I went up the bank, the rear snapped out and I couldn’t recover.”

He was then asked how his Ferrari performed while he chased his old teammate, Russell; Hamilton replied: “It was a bit twitchy, the car. I think we made real progress this weekend. My pace was looking pretty decent.

“I was catching George [Russell] and I think I had the pace of a few cars ahead of me. Very unusual to not finish a race and to go out so early, it’s definitely not great but it is what it is," Hamilton concluded,

Sunday was his 15th race for the Italian team he joined from Mercedes in January, and the winner of a record 105 races has yet to stand on the podium for them.

The 40-year-old and his teammate Charles Leclerc were both disqualified in the Chinese Grand Prix respectively for excessive skid plate wear and having an underweight car.

Adding insult to injury, Hamilton was slapped with a five-place grid penalty for failing to slow under double Yellow flags which he will serve in the next Grand Prix in Monza.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, additional reporting by GrandPrix247)