Hamilton accepts blame as he crashes out again (From The Northern Echo)

Hamilton accepts blame as he crashes out again

12:31am Monday 29th August 2011 in Formula One

Lewis Hamilton has issued a personal apology and blamed himself for his latest accident in yesterday's Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton has been embroiled in a series of incidents this season, the sum total of which have cost him countless points and means his slim title hopes are almost over for this year.

Yesterday's crash came on lap 13 at Spa-Francorchamps, a circuit where Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull won for the first time to leave Hamilton trailing by 113 points with 175 available.

Approaching the end of the Kemmel straight, the front-right tyre on the Sauber, driven by Kamui Kobayashi, hit the left-rear of Hamilton's car at speed.

The impact led to the 26-year-old ploughing nose first into a crash barrier, then careering through a polystyrene advertising hoarding before continuing on for a short distance and grinding to a halt.

Via his Twitter account, Hamilton said: "After watching the replay, I realise it was my fault today, 100 per cent. I didn't give Kobayashi enough room.

"Apologies to Kamui and to my team. The team deserves better from me. Best wishes, Lewis."

McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh, had earlier launched a passionate defence of Hamilton, who following last year's grand prix at Spa Whitmarsh described Sebastian Vettel as "the crash kid" after the German wrecked Jenson Button's race by spearing into the side of the Briton's car.

It is Hamilton, however, who is fast earning that tag, but, not for the first time, Whitmarsh has stood up for his driver.

Whitmarsh said: "Lewis is someone who attracts extremes, who is a passionate, immensely competitive, exciting racing driver.

"People know they have to commit quite heavily to get past him, and he is always going to commit to go past them.

"Lewis makes Formula One a more exciting place to be, so we should all hope Lewis continues to be one of the most exciting racing drivers any of us have seen. I don't want to change him.

"Yes, he's had some disappointments recently, but the new Lewis has handled those very well. He is learning, developing.

"But he is a racing driver who is competitive, which people were saying throughout most of Ayrton Senna's career, the same with Michael Schumacher.

"For all those committed, competitive drivers, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

After being given a clean bill of health following a check up at the medical centre, Hamilton then departed the scene swiftly.

Initially assessing the incident from his own perspective, Hamilton said: "I'm not really quite sure what happened other than hitting the wall pretty hard.

"As far as I'm concerned I was ahead of whoever I was racing and then I was hit by them from behind and that was my race over.

"This is motor racing. There have been a lot of races we (McLaren) haven't finished this year, and this is another one of them.

"We were competitive, and we may have been able to at least have got a podium, but we weren't fast enough for the victory."

In assessing his title chances now, Hamilton's response was clear and succinct as he said: "The championship wasn't ours anyway."

As for Kobayashi, he clearly blamed Hamilton as he said: "I knew perfectly well he was faster than me so had no reason to fight with him.

"After he overtook me it was not my intention to get my position back, so I stayed on my line and didn't expect him to move over."

Vettel claimed his 17th career win and the tenth one-two with team-mate Mark Webber, who finished second for the second successive year at Spa, leaving the Australian 92 points down.

Jenson Button grabbed another podium place to leave Whitmarsh describing him as "the driver of the day".