Lewis Hamilton has delivered astonishing candour on the "nightmare" he has been enduring of late with Ferrari.
The seven-time F1 champion endured a horror of a performance over the São Paulo weekend in which he failed to make it into the top-10 shoot-out for either the sprint or main race qualifying session.
Starting 13th on the grid at Interlagos, Hamilton was involved in a first-corner skirmish with Williams' Carlos Sainz that relegated him to 18th, with only those who started from the pit lane - Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Haas' Esteban Ocon - behind him.
At the end of lap one, and closing in on Franco Colapinto on the run up the hill onto the start-finish straight, Hamilton clipped the rear of the Argentine's Alpine, breaking the front wing on his SF-25.
Although Hamilton pitted for a replacement, the additional damage sustained to the floor of the car in the incident, ultimately forced him to retire midway through the race.
Since the summer break, in particular, Hamilton has scored just 39 points over seven race weekends, bookended by retirements in the Netherlands and Brazil.
"This is a nightmare I've been living in for a while," said Hamilton, speaking to Sky Sports F1.
"The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team, and then the nightmare results that we've had, the ups and downs. It's challenging."
Adamant he will not give up, he added: "Tomorrow, I'll get back up. I'll keep training, I'll keep working with the team.
"I really wanted to get them good points this weekend, but I'll come back as hard and as strong as I can at the next race [in Las Vegas] and try to recover."
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