Charles Leclerc feels it was both at fault in F1 Brazil GP incident which took him out, as Lewis Hamilton disappointed with double damage.
It wasn’t a good start to Ferrari’s campaign in F1 Brazil GP when Hamilton was hit by Williams’ Carlos Sainz at Turn 1. The Brit was on the outside with the Spaniard in the middle. To keep distance from the car in the inside, Sainz’s minor movement saw him bump into the Brit side-by-side.
This dropped Hamilton to the back of the pack and in his attempt to clear Alpine’s Franco Colapinto, he brushed his front wing to cause further damage. He caught the Argentine in the final corner and moved slightly to his left to take the inside line, but the small misjudgment saw him hit the back of him.
Hamilton was forced to pit and was handed a 5s time penalty, much to his disappointment on the radio. He termed the decision as a joke after the stewards noted that he was wholly responsible for the incident. He had severe damage and lost to about 35-40 points of downforce.
After serving the penalty, he retired to end a disappointing weekend as the nightmare continued for him, no matter how positive he tries to remain. This was not the end of dramas for Ferrari, as few laps later, Leclerc was forced to retire after damage from another incident.
Post the safety car restart, Leclerc took the outside line against Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who had a slow re-start. The Italian had to cover McLaren’s Oscar Piastri on the inside, but a contact sent the Mercedes driver into the Monegasque in Turn 1, which turned out to be a heavy hit.
Leclerc lost his left-front wheel immediately, with broken suspension. He felt it was a fault of both rather than one after watching the replays on the big screen. It was a frustrating end after they made some recovery from Friday to secure a decent result, especially against Mercedes and Red Bull.
Incident –
Leclerc: “I watched it from afar, from where I was sat in the grass looking at the big screen from far. Yeah, I mean it’s a shame. Collateral damage of an incident between Oscar and Kimi, where in my opinion actually Kimi was as much to blame as Oscar. For me it’s a bit of a 50-50 incident, Oscar being optimistic, Kimi doing the corner like Oscar was never there. And that means they collided and touched me. Very frustrating considering we are fighting for the second in the Constructors’ Championship and we are the only ones that are not finishing the race. So it’s going to be very difficult to get that second now.”
Hamilton: “I don’t really know what happened at Turn 1, but obviously it’s not great to be hit and after that the car was just gone. He [Colapinto] made a mistake out of the last corner, I got a good tow. As I started to pull out, I felt like he moved at the same time. And that’s just lead to it. I wasn’t struggling to tell them [team about damaged car]. I was just letting them know why I was struggling. It was a bit gustier as well, the lack of rear end through the corners was really disastrous.”
Vasseur: “It’s a tough weekend, I don’t know, at least tough Sunday. I had the feeling that with Charles we were in a good place, that he had a good start, a good restart, that he took margin on the kerb and we are paying the full price of the crash between Antonelli and Piastri. I don’t care about who is at fault between Piastri and Antonelli. But for sure it was not Charles. And it’s tough because in this fight you can’t give up points. When you are giving up points, you are giving points also to the others. It’s a double penalty and in our case it’s very harsh. On Hamilton, yeah, we lost a huge amount of downforce.
“We still don’t know if it was from the crash of Sainz or from the crash of the front wing under the floor, but perhaps both of them. But after 200 metres, when you have a URP25, if you have a look at what Max did today, with a decent pace, I think we can come back and you can score good points. But two crashes is too much. When you are last and you are missing 35 points or 40 points on downforce on the car, I’m not sure that it makes sense to damage the engine. We serve the penalty and we stop the car.”
Frustrating end –
Leclerc: “Yeah, very frustrating. Very frustrating, but it’s the way it is. It’s the way that goes racing sometimes, but it’s difficult to swallow. I think the reaction of the team to turn the situation around from Friday to yesterday and today, this has been a really good effort. But on the other hand, when you finish a weekend like this, I’m pretty sure everybody is very much down. Three weekends that need to be perfectly executed in order to get the second place in the Constructors. Maybe in Las Vegas, but Mercedes has been very strong in Las Vegas as well. And eventually now they are the ones that have the upper hand for the Constructors, so it’s going to be tricky.”
Hamilton: “It’s obviously a disaster for us, a disappointment for everyone in the team. But I’m trying to keep my head above water. I’m trying to remain positive. Charles did a great job in qualifying so there is some performance in our car. I agree, at this point I just have to believe that something will come out of all these hardships we’re going through. I’m sure we’re destined for something positive in the future. Maybe we’re getting all of our bad luck out of the way this year, who knows. We won’t give up. It’s a nightmare. I’ve been living it now for a while and the flip between living 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, but tomorrow I’ll get back up. I’ll keep training and 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 and try to recover. We are really having to fight through those hardships at the moment, but I believe there is something up ahead in my life and in my destiny. Truly, I still believe in this team and what we can achieve. I just have to keep pushing and never give up.”
Vasseur: “A positive when you are at the end of the championship is difficult to take positive when you have double DNF. But I would say that if I have to take a positive part of the weekend is the pace in quali, the recovery, that even the start, the restart, we are fighting, looking at the front, not looking at the guy who is behind us, trying to attack and with a positive attitude. And this is for sure good. But when you are at this point of the championship, you are more focused on points than on potential. I think we struggled.
“I think in FP1 we did only one stint with one set of tyres with the hard, perhaps that the step was huge for the quali. I think we are the only ones with Red Bull to do it. We all struggled a little bit in quali. But from the sprint race, the pace was back. The pace was decent in the sprint race. We were blocked by Alonso in the first part of the race. But then when we had clean air, it was OK. And the quali went well. Honestly, in terms of pure performance, it’s difficult to say something like this when you leave Brazil with a double zero. I can’t say it was a good weekend.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-polesitter-norris-leads-away-from-antonelli-on-the-race-start.1848333750055262302
Here’s Charles Leclerc incident: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-leclerc-out-and-piastri-up-to-p2-after-dramatic-restart.1848334755685601334
Here’s Lewis Hamilton incident: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-hamilton-picks-up-damage-after-lap-1-contact-with-colapinto.1848338179702375758
Here’s what Oscar Piastri made of it
Here’s how F1 Brazil GP panned out
