Lewis Hamilton has placed the blame for his miserable São Paulo
Grand Prix on the Mercedes floor. The seven-time F1 World Champion
started fifth and was third by the time red flags were thrown for a
first-lap incident that took a number of cars out of the race. But
despite challenging McLaren’s Lando Norris into Turn 1 at the
restart, a lack of pace in the W14 left Hamilton struggling to
fight his rivals. After Red Bull driver Sergio Perez and Aston
Martin duo Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll jumped ahead, Ferrari’s
Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly also made moves to leave
Hamilton down in eighth, losing vital ground to Mexican Perez in
the race for second in the Drivers’ standings. “My guess is that
the floor is not working,” Hamilton told media including
RacingNews365.com . “The floor is not sucking it down. So that
pushed us to go to a higher wing, and then we’re just massively
draggy on the straights. “And we’re losing so much time on the
straights, there’s nothing I can do about it, and then we’re just
sliding through the corners. So we have to look into why that is
the case on this rough circuit.” ‘I knew we’d have a difficult day’
Mercedes’ downfall mirrored the issues that plagued the team’s
Sprint fortunes on Saturday, despite a change in temperatures
overnight. Asked whether he had hoped for a more positive outcome,
Hamilton replied: “I knew that we’d have a difficult day, “Nothing
changed in the car [overnight]. So I knew it’d be a tough one. ” I
just ate through the tyres [in the Sprint] with an unexpected lack
of pace and then I think I drove better [in the Grand Prix] in
terms of making my stints, but we were just slow.”
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