Hamilton: Canada crash an honest mistake

Lewis Hamilton said his brush with the wall which proved terminal to his second practice session at the Canadian Grand Prix was down to "an honest mistake". Hamilton skidded out of Turn 9 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and clouted the wall, picking up damage as a result.

Hamilton's rear-right tyre was punctured and Mercedes eventually opted to rebuild the entire back end of his car, leaving him with an hour of missed time in FP2, and without any long-run data of his own.

Having topped the timesheets in FP1, Hamilton could only look on as Ferrari turned the tables on Mercedes in FP2, Charles Leclerc ending the day fastest.

Hamilton described the agony of watching on-track action while unable to join in and credited Mercedes' mechanics for their hard work in fixing the damage.

He said: "I made a mistake in FP2 and damaged the car. The boys tried really hard to fix it, but there wasn't enough time.

"I don't remember the last time I missed a whole session before. It's definitely not great to watch the session from the garage; it feels like sitting in the headmaster's office, wishing to be back in class.

"It was an innocent mistake, I was doing multiple laps on the Medium tyre and was really trying to find the limit.

Even the best in the business make mistakes sometimes... ??#CanadianGP ? #F1 pic.twitter.com/dh05Hvdohr

— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) June 7, 2019

"Obviously I went slightly over, I had a big snap out of Turn 9 and was drifting for a long time, hoping I wouldn't hit the wall.

"But these things happen; you just have to put it behind straight away you and get back on the horse.

"Luckily Valtteri [Bottas] had a good session today, so there'll be a lot of analysis from that. The boys will do a great job fixing the car tonight and we'll come back ready for a better day tomorrow."

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