De Vries fumes over 'silly and unnecessary' crash

Nyck de Vries has labelled his race-ending crash at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix "silly and unnecessary".

The AlphaTauri driver provided the only notable drama during a largely lacklustre event won by Sergio Perez when he made contact with the Turn 5 apex wall, breaking his steering and coming to a halt at Turn 6.

The incident played a pivotal part in the race as it triggered the only Safety Car of the 51-lap affair, moments after then-race leader Max Verstappen had made his pit stop to surrender track position.

Speaking to media including RacingNews365.com, de Vries conceded: "[It was] fully my mistake, my responsibility, silly and unnecessary and that is all I can say about it.

"All I can do now is move on and look at the next... thankfully there is another race next weekend and we will have to look ahead to what's coming.

"It is kind of an awkward corner because the wall comes towards you and I was just a bit too close. It is a mistake, fully on me, nobody else to blame and I made it."

De Vries has endured a difficult start to the season with no points to his name and AlphaTauri struggling for pace compared to its rivals.

But the rookie remains defiant and insisted: "There is positivity to take away from certain moments and I think we have shown, since Jeddah, speed at given moments but for a lot of reasons and circumstances, we haven't really been able to turn it into a concrete result.

"That is very tough to swallow, hard, but the only way to move forward is to continue to look ahead and just follow the process.

"I personally believe things will turn around."