SAO PAULO — Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes said poor set-up decisions were to blame as their hopes melted in the sun as Red Bull’s triple Formula One world champion Max Verstappen dashed to victory in the sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Verstappen won a Sao Paulo sprint race after seizing the lead from McLaren’s Lando Norris at the first corner.
Norris, lining up on pole position, finished second with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez third. The win was Verstappen’s fourth of the season in six sprints.
George Russell, last year’s sprint winner in Brazil, finished fourth for Mercedes with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fifth and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda sixth for his team’s first sprint points.
Mercedes’ seven-time world champion Hamilton was seventh and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz took the final point in the standalone 24-lap 100km race at the Interlagos circuit, Reuters reported.
The seven-time world champion and his team boss Toto Wolff expressed bitter disappointment after arriving in Brazil with high expectations following two strong races in Texas and Mexico.
But after a sharp start, Hamilton fell from fourth to seventh while team-mate George Russell battled to hang on in fourth place, both struggling on worn tyres as Verstappen cruised home ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull-team-mate Sergio Perez.
“It was horrible,” said Hamilton according to AFP. “Not enjoyable whatsoever. I had a good start, but I was fighting the car from early on with understeer and oversteer and then I had no tyres in the end.
“And now I don’t know how we can fix that. It’s going to be a long afternoon. I went for the wrong set-up, I assume, and it is what it is, but I’ll fight as hard as I can.”
Wolff, in a testy mood, said: “We had a great start and pushed hard, but after that it was clear the car was not balanced right. We were sliding and that killed the tyres.
“The rear was set up too weak and the car was on a knife’s edge on these tyres… It was a bruising day.”
He waved aside mentions of his team’s previous sprint race successes including last year’s win by George Russell. “Well, I don’t care about the past and today it wasn’t good.”
Russell said he felt the race, run in temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius (air) and 46 degrees on the track, and was “confusing and disappointing”.
“It wasn’t there for us today when we expected a lot, but the conditions are different tomorrow and that can change everything.
“Max finished 25 seconds ahead on a 24-lap race. But tomorrow will be different – it will be three degrees cooler and that’s everything.”
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