The seven-time world champion had a race to forget in Singapore as he hit the wall in the tricky conditions on Lap 33 during his pursuit of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz as they battled over third place.
Hamilton damaged his front wing and was forced to pit, dropping him from fourth to eighth. He was then overtaken by the recovering Max Verstappen when he ran wide in his attempts to get past Sebastian Vettel, leaving the Mercedes driver a lowly ninth, where he ultimately finished.
Hamilton apologized to his team over the radio, saying: “I’m so sorry about that guys, I f***** that up big time.”
Speaking to media afterwards, Hamilton said he wouldn’t beat himself up over his uncharacteristic mistake.
“I knew it was all over from then, but these things happen,” said Hamilton.
“I’m not going to punish myself for a mistake. It was very tricky conditions for everyone.
“The problems that we have with this car are magnified in the rain, when it’s wet, and it’s a very, very hard car to drive in the rain.”
Verstappen attributed his own off-track excursion to bottoming-out on his car.
Asked if he had the same problem, Hamilton replied: “I don’t really know. I will check on the data.
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“I don’t want to blame it on that but the car was bottoming a lot and I had the locking. I don’t know where the locking came from. My fault.”
Hamilton, who missed out on his first pole position of 2022 by just 0.054s as he secured his best qualifying of the season on Saturday, felt he had the pace to challenge the leaders had he not been stuck behind Sainz.
Despite Mercedes’ struggles in the wet, Hamilton said he could still take some positives away from the weekend.
“The car had its moments this weekend for sure where it wasn’t too bad,” he added.
“It’s a bit hit and miss this car but for sure there’s positives to take away from this weekend.
“It’s just a shame not to get more points for the team, but we’ll take it.”
