Lewis Hamilton has called his first Formula One season with Ferrari “a nightmare” after the seven-time world champion retired from a bruising 2025 São Paulo Grand Prix.

Hamilton’s race on Sunday at the Interlagos track where has won three times in his storied career and is adored by the Brazilian fans for his love of their shared hero, Ayrton Senna, quickly became a nightmare in its own right.

He started 13th after he’d been eliminated in the second part of qualifying for the second time in this sprint weekend. His teammate, Charles Leclerc, started third.

Then at the race’s first corner, light contact with Williams driver Carlos Sainz sent Hamilton tumbling further down the order. When he ran onto Interlago’s pit straight at the end of the first lap, he clipped the left rear wheel of Franco Colapinto’s Alpine — a clash for which the race stewards later gave Hamilton a five-second penalty. The touch broke Hamilton’s front wing, with some of the large and complex aerodynamic parts getting wedged under his car as he toured around.

He pitted for repairs, but the wing had also damaged the forward section of his car’s floor. This is critical to good car speed and handling in the current ground-effect era of F1 car designs. As Hamilton voiced his concerned about his ruined car balance he was lapping last on the road. He retired on Lap 37 of 71, after serving his time penalty at another pitstop.

Hamilton lost his front wing early in the race (Anni Graf / Getty Images)

“This is a nightmare and I’ve been living it for a while,” he told Sky Sports F1 afterwards, referencing his disappointing results since joining Ferrari ahead of the 2025 F1 campaign. “The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and then the nightmare of the results that we’ve had – the ups and the downs – it’s challenging.

“But tomorrow I’ll get back up, I’ll keep training, I’ll keep working with the team.”

Overall, Ferrari has produced a poor 2025 season, with its SF-25 car not carrying on its strong momentum from 2024’s end, when the team finished a close second in the constructors’ championship to McLaren. Ferrari has been unable to replicate the five wins it scored last season.

It has looked stronger in recent events, with Charles taking podiums in the two GP races preceding Brazil, and Hamilton being in podium contention too in Mexico last time out. There, another penalty wrecked his chances.

Although he won the 2025 China sprint race on his second F1 weekend appearance for Ferrari back at the beginning of this season, this soon proved to be a false dawn. Hamilton has not yet scored a first grand prix podium for Ferrari, and if he ever does so, he’ll hold the unwelcome record of taking the most GPs (21 and counting) to do so in his team’s famous red colors.

“I really wanted to get them (Ferrari) good points this weekend,” he said. “But I’ll come back as hard (and) as strong as I can at the next race to (try to) recover it.”