Lewis Hamilton admits he's "been living in a nightmare for a while"

Lewis Hamilton has described his first season as a Ferrari driver as a “nightmare”.

The seven-time world champion was forced to retire from the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after a troublesome race in which he suffered two clashes, picked up a five-second time penalty, and sustained floor damage.

Contact with Williams’ Carlos Sainz dropped Hamilton to the rear of the field, before he clipped the rear of Alpine’s Franco Colapinto. The incident forced Hamilton to pit for a new front wing and also cost him a penalty.

Hamilton was running last and was eventually called into the pits to retire from the race on Lap 38 after serving his punishment.

It marked the latest torrid result in what has been a debut Ferrari season to forget for Hamilton.

"This is a nightmare, I've been living it for a while,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

"The flip between the dream of driving for this amazing team and then the nightmare of results that we've had, the ups and downs - it's challenging.

"But 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'm come back as strong as I can in the next race and try and recover it.”

‘Annoying’ weekend for Hamilton

Hamilton has made encouraging progress since the summer break and been closer to the performance of teammate Charles Leclerc, though he remains without a grand prix podium after his first 21 races as a Ferrari driver.

With Leclerc also suffering a DNF in Brazil, Ferrari have now slipped to fourth place in the constructors’ championship, behind Mercedes and Red Bull.

“It’s a bit annoying for him, actually, because until this weekend, his run of form since the summer break has been great,” former F1 driver and Sky Sports F1 analyst Karun Chandhok said.

“He’s been a match for Leclerc all the way through. He got the penalty in Mexico which annoyed him. This weekend just didn’t quite work out for him in qualifying.

“They both were struggling on Friday in sprint qualifying. Hopefully it’s just a one-off because his form until this weekend has been a match for Charles.”

Fellow Sky Sports F1 pundit and three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick added: “That race couldn’t have gone much worse, with the first lap and then the incident with the front wing.

“He’s out of position, qualifying 13th already that’s not what he expects.

"That’s not why he joined Ferrari, that’s not what he would have wanted coming to a track like this. It’s not good times.”