"Apart from that, it's been a really solid weekend," insists seven-time world champion after crashing out of Dutch Grand Prix.

Pushing hard, in hot pursuit of his teammate and George Russell, Hamilton crashed out on Lap 22 amidst reports that light rain was beginning to fall.

The Briton, who suffered a nightmare weekend in Hungary, causing some to think he was contemplating quitting the sport, had looked strong in all three practice sessions, with qualifying the first session in which his teammate out-paced him.

As he entered the banked Turn 3, the seven-time champ lost the rear of his car and slammed into the wall on the outside.

"I'm really not sure. I will have to look back at it," he told Sky Sports when asked what happened. "As I went up the bank, the rear snapped out and I couldn't recover.

"It was a bit twitchy, the car," he added, referring to the opening laps. "I think we made real progress this weekend. My pace was looking pretty decent. I was catching George and I think I had the pace of a few cars ahead of me.

"It's very unusual to not finish a race and to go out so early," he admitted, "it's definitely not great, but it is what it is."

It's thought that in fact Hamilton ran over the painted surface that lines the track and which by now was wet and lethal. Indeed, in the moments after the crash most drivers were warned to avoid the painted surface.

Among those who wasn't appraised of the situation was Lando Norris who expressed frustration at not having been told.

Before the incident, in his pursuit of his teammate and Russell, Hamilton had suggested an undercut.

"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," he subsequently told reporters. "I wanted to go long, and so my tyres were still feeling good.

"I felt like I made progress," he reiterated, "just overall, my approach and everything, so to come away with nothing is definitely painful.

"I'm sad for the team, 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."

Of course, things were to get worse for Hamilton and his team. The Briton was hit with a 5-place grid drop for Monza for a couple of pre-race misdemeanours, while teammate Leclerc crashed out in an incident involving Kimi Antonelli.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.