Lewis Hamilton said his Ferrari dream had also become a nightmare as the Italian team suffered another double retirement in Brazil on Sunday and slipped to fourth in the Formula One standings.
The seven-times world champion made contact with Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto at the start of the race at Interlagos and severely damaged his car’s floor and front wing.
Stewards gave the Briton a five-second penalty for the incident with Colapinto and he eventually gave up the struggle and retired on lap 37, after serving the punishment.
Teammate Charles Leclerc also retired after qualifying third, punted out by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli in a three-way collision that McLaren’s Oscar Piastri took the rap for.
“This is a nightmare, I’ve been living it for a while,” commented Hamilton to Sky Sports television.
“The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and then the nightmare of the results that we’ve had, the ups and downs. It’s challenging.
“Tomorrow I’ll get back up, I’ll keep training, I’ll keep working with the team. I really wanted to get them good points this weekend but I’ll come back as strong as I can in the next race,” he added.
It was the third time this season that Ferrari, the team Hamilton joined in January from Mercedes with soaring optimism, had failed to score with both drivers.
Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver of all time, won a Shanghai sprint in March but has yet to stand on the podium in 21 races.
Ferrari are now four points behind Red Bull and 36 adrift of Mercedes in a championship already clinched for the second year in a row by McLaren.
During the race Hamilton had complained his car was lacking downforce and unstable, a combination he said was “pretty disastrous” through the corners.
Team boss Fred Vasseur said it was hard to find any positives from Sunday.
“In sprint qualifying we got a decent result, in the sprint race the pace was good and qualifying went well with Charles. It’s been a very tough Sunday,” said the Frenchman.
“I had the feeling that, at least with Charles, we were in a good place but we paid the price for a collision between Antonelli and Piastri, which is very harsh for him and the team.”
