Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton and another lean Sunday for Ferrari

The two Scuderia drivers abandoned the San Pablo GP and complicated the chances of being runners-up in the Constructors. The Monegasque was better, but he received a carom hit. The Englishman had a forgettable career.

At 5:40 p.m., the last group of the Ferrari troup descends the stairs that lead from the paddock to the parking lot. They talk little among themselves. One of the women in the contingent talks about the cool wind that blew in the São Paulo evening, unusual for the usually hot city. Little by little they approach the vans that will transport them. None of them smell like champagne, it’s just that they weren’t even close to reaching the podium. La Rossa had a very lean Sunday in Interlagos, the 21st round of Formula 1. For the third time in the 21st century they left Brazil without scoring in Sunday’s main competition (2003 and 2019 had been the previous ones).

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton had to abandon the race. For different reasons, certainly. The Monegasque was involved in a carom in which, without eating or drinking it, he destroyed the front suspension of his SF-25. It was in the restart after the safety car of the first lap, when Oscar Piastri went on the inside to pass Kimi Antonelli and Leclerc looked for the maneuver on the outside. The three of them arrived together at the first corner, the Australian hit the Italian and, on the rebound, the one from Monaco was hit by the Mercedes driver.

Leclerc started third and had options to fight, at least, for a place on the podium. Not much more with Ferrari’s performance in 2025. But scoring points was almost a fixed thing. “Oscar was optimistic about the maneuver, but I think Kimi knew that Oscar was on the inside and took the turn as if Oscar had never been there. For me, the blame does not fall entirely on Oscar; was optimistic, but this could have been avoided. I’m frustrated. At the end of the day, I’m not mad at any of them, these things happen. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everything is Oscar’s fault, I don’t think it is,” was Leclerc’s summary.

Hamilton didn’t have it any better. In the first lap he was involved in a tight maneuver with Carlos Sainz, in which there was no penalty, and then he took Franco Colapinto in the middle of the straight. Unusual and illogical what happened. The front wing of the seven-time champion’s Ferrari was destroyed and he had to go in to change it. With the couple of frictions, something went wrong with the SF-25 and finally Lews (he was penalized with five seconds for the collision with the Argentine) put his car away.

“I’ve been living this nightmare for a while,” said Hamilton, who is local to Brazil. During the pilots’ parade he was shown with a Brazilian flag and every time he appeared on the giant screens he was applauded by the public. “I am torn between the dream of racing for this incredible team and the nightmare of the results we have obtained,” He said bluntly in statements to Sky Sports.

“Tomorrow I will get up, continue training and working with the team. “I really wanted to get some good points for them this weekend, but I’ll be back with all my strength in the next race and try to recover,” Lewis concluded.

The double abandonment conditioned Ferrari’s chances of runner-up in the Constructors’ World Championship. He left Brazil 36 points behind Mercedes, which celebrated Kimi Antonelli’s second place and George Russell’s fourth.