Lewis Hamilton endured his worst finish of the 2026 F1 season so far on Sunday with P9 in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, and former Ferrari race engineer Luigi Mazzola suggests the Scuderia were heavily to blame.

Up until round 20/23 in Brazil last weekend, Hamilton had not finished a Grand Prix lower than P6 this year, and has also only failed to finish one race so far. The 41-year-old recorded his only retirement from a race in 2026 in Madrid, when he retired from the Spanish Grand Prix due to a brake failure inside the opening laps.

Lewis Hamilton ‘suffered’ due to Ferrari’s tyre pressures on the inters in Brazil

But Hamilton enjoyed the only positive from his Sao Paulo GP at the start, as he launched off the grid and found himself in P9 by the exit of Turn 5 on the first lap. The seven-time F1 champion had the best launch of the entire field and found grip while others struggled and fought for position, only to then hit trouble.

Hamilton clashed with Ferrari about when to pit for slick tyres in Brazil, and the team’s handling of his race strategy would again be a topic of debate when he mistimed his return to intermediates and spun after the rain returned. The Briton’s opening stint on the inters was also not without issue due to his tyre pressures.

Mazzola, who worked as Alain Prost’s engineer and oversaw Ferrari’s test team during the Michael Schumacher era, believes Ferrari set the tyre pressures on Hamilton’s inters too high. Thus, as team boss Fred Vasseur noted, while Hamilton made a brilliant start, his immediate regression in the race was not necessarily his mistake.

Mazzola told Fanpage: “What Vasseur said is essentially what happened. At least for Hamilton, they set the tyre pressures high enough to try to have a car ready right away.

“When it’s wet, there are different philosophies regarding pressures. If they’re too low, the driver can’t get a feel for the car, because it moves too much and doesn’t inspire confidence.

“So, he can’t push, he doesn’t warm up the tyres, and by not warming them, he doesn’t raise the pressures. He finds himself in a limbo where he can’t bring out the car’s potential.

“[When the pressures are too high] you have a ready-to-go car right away. It’s clear, however, that after two or three laps, the tyres begin to heat up because the driver was able to push, the car generates energy, and the tyres absorb that energy.

“At that point, the pressures rise further, the tyres become a bit rounded, and the tread surface in contact with the asphalt is reduced. That area overheats excessively, and both mechanical and thermal degradation occurs.

“I think he suffered precisely from this problem. A car that was too good at the start, then completely lost its rear end, unable to maintain a consistent performance. He even got passed by [Fernando] Alonso.”

“It was probably a question of tyre pressures,” Vasseur said, via GPblog. “You cannot have a first lap like that and then not pay some price for it.”

Teammate Charles Leclerc and Hamilton agreed that Ferrari’s tyre temperatures held them back in Brazil, as well, as the extra heat in their Pirelli tyres meant the pressures rose and their problems increased. But had Ferrari set Hamilton’s pressures any lower, he may not have made as much progress at the start on Sunday.

Mazzola does not believe Ferrari set Leclerc’s pressures as high as Hamilton’s, and yet he still struggled in the rain. Leclerc started from P14 on the grid due to an ICE change, and he did not make any real progress before pitting for slick tyres.

But such was the situation at Ferrari that Leclerc even overtook Hamilton for what was P12 at the time on Lap 10/71. Hamilton tried to utilise the outside line through Mergulho (Turn 11), but his wider line gifted Leclerc the inside into Juncao and ultimately the position after then winning their drag race up the hill.