Hamilton: It’s good that there are only two races left for the W14

In Sunday’s race in Sao Paulo, only one Mercedes driver reached the finish: Lewis Hamilton earned four points for eighth place. The seven-time world champion was pleased that he had only two laps behind the wheel of the W14.

His teammate George Russell retired due to cooling system problems.

Lewis Hamilton (8th): “Today it wasn’t as bad as in the sprint, when the tires were worn to zero. During the race we managed to control the condition of the tires much better. The car worked sometimes and sometimes it didn’t. During the round he behaved unstable. We need to understand the reasons.

In addition, the car lacked speed on the straights and slid in the corners. I would like to forget this race, but we learned a lot today.

I’m sure we’ll find out why and what could have been done differently, but with one workout it was difficult to do anything about it. I still have two races left in this car. I hope I don’t have to fly it again.”

George Russell (meeting): “Something clearly went wrong for us this weekend, but we don’t know exactly what. We just didn’t have the pace. We thought the lack of speed in the sprint was an exception, but now it is clear that this is not the case, so we need to regroup and understand the reasons.

Twelve months ago we had our strongest race of the season at this track, and today was our weakest race of the season. This is all very strange. The car was just slow this weekend. The tires were slipping, so in this situation we did the maximum. Something is clearly wrong, because it is impossible to suddenly lose speed and instead of fighting for the podium, fight for points.

The team and I have to investigate the reasons, but obviously we didn’t have the pace this weekend.”

Toto Wolff, team leader: “Unacceptable result, I simply have no words for it. A week ago our car finished second, but today everything was terrible. Lewis earned points and George retired. I can only sympathize that they had to drive such a car.

We have to make a better car for next season. We can’t afford to finish on the podium in one race, our car is the second fastest, and a week later we finish nowhere and finish eighth.”