WATCH: 'It can hurt... a lot' – The drivers reveal what it's really like to crash an F1 car

At just about every race weekend we see crashes in Formula 1. Some are little more than light taps into the barriers, others are dramatic, violent affairs resulting in thousands of pieces of carbon fibre bodywork showering the track.

Thanks to modern safety standards we, thankfully, usually see the drivers walk away from even the biggest crashes – but that doesn't mean they don't hurt.

And for the drivers – aside from the physical pain – there is then the business of having to go back to the garage and face the team of mechanics who spent hours building and fine-tuning the car, only to see it destroyed in a split second.

So what does it really feel like when you're hurtling towards the barriers at 300kph and knowing there's nothing you can do to prevent the impending impact? We asked Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and a host of other F1 drivers to explain. See what they had to say in the video above...

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