Lewis Hamilton had an abysmal São Paolo Grand Prix, eventually ending up in eighth position, more than a minute behind winner Max Verstappen. According to the seven time champion of the world the difficult day wasn’t unexpected.
“I knew that we would have a difficult day. Nothing changed in the car from yesterday to today.
“Yesterday I ate through the tyres with an unexpected lack of pace and then I think I got it better today in terms of making at least making my stints,” he said, claiming the little positive takeaway from the race.
The Mercedes driver had a good start, but was quickly picked off by Fernando Alonso, and more drivers followed during the race, with Hamilton being unable to defend or even follow someone. The Briton was unsure what caused the lack of pace, but knew where the poor straight line speed came from.
“My guess is that the floor is not working. We were of course a second down and that just pushed us to go to higher wings and then we were just massively dragging on the straights.
“We were losing too much time on the straights. There is nothing I could do about it and then we were just sliding through the corners.
“So we have to look into why that is the case of this rough circuit.”
The setback after two great performances in the United States and Mexico will undoubtedly prompt some internal investigation and analysis, as the team was hopeful they had found the way up.
“Ultimately in the moment it is a setback. As a team, we’ll just come together and we’ll try and push forwards and, you know, there’ll be a lot of analysis this week after today,” Lewis explained. “And I’m sure things will be like, ‘Oh, we should have maybe, maybe if we have done this it would have been better.’
“But I think still ultimately, if the car didn’t work here for some reason and that is the way it is.”
The 103-time Grand Prix winner also wasn’t too optimisitic about turning aroung the form for the final two races.
“I don’t expect it, but it could be. You never know what this about.”
“The tyres are always overheating for us. Just tyres are overheating, slow on the straights, no grip in the corners,” Hamilton summarised the issues.
At one point during the race he came onto the radio complaining about his car turning the opposite direction of which he was turning.
“Yeah, it’s super strange,” he explained. “And I wondered if the tyre maybe hadn’t been done up or something. The car started turning right whilst I was going left. I think it must have been just the wind.”
Asked whether he saw any improvement for the coming years he wasn’t too optimistic either, despite that being the only thing he can do.
“I think ultimately all I can do is try to remain optimistic. The Red Bull, I think, is so far away. I think they’re probably going to be very clear for the next couple of years.”
