Sky Sports presenter and former F1 driver Karun Chandhok has spoken on Lewis Hamilton's performance at the Brazilian Grand Prix following a nightmare weekend for the 39-year-old.
Hamilton managed to score a point at Interlagos by coming home in P10, however, the seven-time world champion never looked competitive and couldn't get to grips with his Mercedes.
“That was a disaster weekend, guys. That’s the worst the car’s ever been," Hamilton said on team radio.
The result saw Hamilton fall below his teammate George Russell in the standings as he sits in seventh place with 190 points making Perez the only driver in the top four teams lower than Hamilton.
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Seeing Hamilton struggle so much is a massive shock, and Chandhok believes his attitude towards these final races just isn't there at the minute.
“I don’t know about you, Bernie [Collins], but Lewis just sounded dejected and disappointed," he said on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast .
“It sounded like if it was up to him on Sunday, he would just come, driven that demo in Senna’s car, and go back to the airport. And honestly, watching the onboards, it looked awful."
Chandhok had studied Hamilton's onboard footage from both the race and qualifying and revealed that his woes were simply down to not having confidence.
“He just had no grip in qualifying. He had no grip, no confidence to do anything in the race," he continued.
“The team radio comes, I mean, he just sounded pretty depressed really on the Sunday and I’m not sure I blame him.”
Hamilton will be replaced at Mercedes by 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli next year as the Brit makes his long-anticipated move to Ferrari.
Ferrari will line up with Hamilton alongside Charles Leclerc in what is arguably the strongest driver pairing we have seen for many years in F1.
Ferrari's impressive late-season form which has seen them win two of the last three races, will be music to the ears of Hamilton who has only won twice since 2021.
Topics: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, George Russell, Sky Sports, Formula 1
Tom Jenkins