Lewis Hamilton admits that a holiday... Christmas... anything will do after a "terrible" weekend in the "worst car" he has ever driven.

The very fact that the seven-time world champion leaves Brazil - a Sprint weekend - just one point better off, probably tells you all you need to know. But Hamilton believes that even that single point flatters to deceive.

"Yesterday was terrible, today was terrible," he said of Saturday's Sprint. "Yesterday was bad, qualifying was bad, the Sprint race was bad. The car's just been bad all weekend," he added.

Despite the resurfacing of the Interlagos track it remains very bumpy and while a number of drivers complained, Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were among those most affected, bith admitting to suffering pain.

However, for Hamilton, even more painful was the performance of his car.

"I just put my focus on something else," said the Briton, who admits to longing for the end of the season. "I'm not fighting for the championship, it doesn't really matter where we finish in the championship.

"I don't care if I finish ahead of George or behind George, it doesn't make that big of a difference to me. I just want to keep the car out the wall and try to score points if I can for the team.

"If I can finish well and they give me a car that doesn't bounce off the track in the next few races, then hopefully we get a better result. I'm looking forward to Christmas."

The one crumb of comfort for the Mercedes driver was that he got to drive a McLaren... albeit a 34-year-old one... being Ayrton Senna's 1990 MP4/5B.

"Well the race was c**p, but driving Senna's car was the best thing ever," he grinned. "So, I'm still happy and grateful that I had that experience here in Interlagos.

"An amazing reception from the fans," he added. "They've been incredible this weekend. They turned up, I think, at 3 am this morning. So, unbelievable commitment from the fans here this weekend.

"Let's not talk about the car," he said of his Mercedes, "because you know the car is no good."

For teammate George Russell it wasn't the car so much as the strategy that frustrated, for like Lando Norris he pitted for fresh rubber just before the race was red-flagged. However, even without the stoppage Russell believed he should have stayed out longer.

"Very painful all things considered," said Russell at race end, "not much I want to say really.

"It was 'box'. I said 'stay out'," he recalled. "It was 'box' again, it was 'stay out', I said. And they said 'box' again. As I said, 'I want to stay out'. And then the last one, you've got to go for it...

"Sometimes you have to trust your gut," he added. "Last time I trusted my gut it went down pretty well," he said, referring to the Belgian Grand Prix. "Today, who knows if we could have won the race? But if we didn't pit, we would have been leading at the restart and the first 30 laps controlling the pace.

"With Lando behind us, we had very good straight-line speed as well. P2 would have been a minimum."

Being at the coal-face, Russell believes that a driver has the best insight in terms of conditions.

"From a team's perspective, it's not obvious at all," he said. "From the cockpit, it was very clear it was going to be a red flag or safety car, because the conditions were undriveable. The rain was not easing. I could see the big black cloud above me.

"And then I had Shov jump on as, like, overruling my engineer to say 'box'. We're working as a team, we're trying to make the best decisions in the time. Clearly the guys who didn't pit, they finished 1-2-3 and we finished the highest of the drivers who did. So I would take a small slice of satisfaction from that."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Sao Paulo here.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by kenji, 06/11/2024 12:37

"The GOAT appears to heading towards a knockout win in the WWC for '24. Russel is making the GOAT look rather ordinary at face value. I mean this is THE GOAT we're tqlking about here."

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2. Posted by RobMartin, 06/11/2024 9:08

"Yet Russel was, for a very reasonable time, in contention for the win.... have Ferrari made a mistake or has Lewis just checked out of Mercedes early?"

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3. Posted by ffracer, 04/11/2024 21:08

"@Chester: I had to laugh, so true about the roughness, the bruises lately are taking longer to heal lol

Hamilton drove well considering the greasy lack of grip, hustling that car around. In retrospect, Russell had a great race. Brutal weekend for them... and then getting the chance to drive your idol’s shrieking McLaren MP4/5 around that sacred Brazilian racetrack in front of the passionately mad, adoring locals and devoted fans? Truly epic!"

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4. Posted by Chester, 04/11/2024 13:19

"Yet Russell finished 4th in the same car- and qualified 2nd. Alonso also complained of bouncing and pain. I love Alonso but maybe he and Hamilton are like me when I was 40 and emerged from a gokart thinking " too rough".

"

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Hamilton laments "worst car ever"

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