Why was Lewis Hamilton was at fault for Monaco FP3 crash?

Lewis Hamilton crashed at the end of the final practice session ahead of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix. Analysing the incident, former Formula 1 driver Karun Chandhok has explained why he feels the seven-time champion was at fault.

After the practice ended with the red flag, Ferrari confirmed:

“We changed the nose, front wing and right front suspension. We also replaced the entire rear end, including left and right hand suspension and gearbox as this is a quicker procedure than simply changing the damaged right rear suspension.”

Speaking during the Sky Sports F1 broadcast, Chandhok examined the lap on which Hamilton crashed against his fastest lap during the session. He explained:

“There’s a difference in the line as he comes around Massenet. So, if you look at the lap [when] he does crash, and we’ll use the white line on the inside there as a reference. You can see he’s clearly closer to the line. He’s gone for a tighter line.

“And then you can see, it gets that snap of oversteer. So I think as Jenson [Button] was saying, I think they did lose a bit of downforce perhaps from the car front because again, watch, this is just as he gets that snap. He’s starting to get, you can see the car just in front of him there, a little bit of the dirty air.

“So I think there was a factor in there. But because he’s gone for the tighter line, the load you’re putting, it’s a tighter angle, you’re loading the tyres, [the] tyres have done a bit more running as well, and then he gets that snap, and at that stage it’s very hard to recover.

“So I do think there was an element of just being a slightly different trajectory on the way in, that was a contributing factor as well, a little bit of the dirty air.

“As you said, Lewis put his hands up, admitted the mistake.”