Lewis Hamilton only managed to fight back to ninth place after starting the Sao Paulo Grand Prix at the back of the grid.

Hamilton, who had incurred power unit penalties, made a remarkable start to climb into the points on the opening lap.

The seven-time world champion was one of the first drivers to switch to the slick tyres, but he was too late to return to intermediates when the rain returned in the closing stages.

Lewis Hamilton thought staying out was the right call at Interlagos

Hamilton was battling Liam Lawson for seventh place as the shower intensified and the field flooded into the pits.

He confirmed in an untelevised radio message that he had missed the pit entry, a repeat of his mistake in Singapore last month. Just before pitting on the following lap, he had a half-spin that very nearly ended his race as he bumped the barriers.

The lap times already showed that he had made a mistake, but the error was dramatic confirmation.

Ruing his mistake a lap later, Hamilton admitted that he had misread the conditions.

“Oh man… You did say it was raining,” he told Santi. “I just, I thought I could keep going. I was fine on track.”

“[It] was a shame,” the engineer replied.

In the end, it was Hamilton’s teammate, Charles Leclerc, who passed Lawson to finish seventh.

Hamilton would be lapped by race winner Lando Norris, compounding his misery.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was already unhappy with Hamilton for taking Ferrari’s strategy into his own hands in Singapore. On that occasion, he elected to stay out behind a virtual safety car, a decision that cost him a potential podium and saw him drop to sixth.

As Vasseur pointed out to the media afterwards, Hamilton took ownership of that call.

“Don’t blame the team guys […] There was a clear message, and the driver apologised that he let the team down,” he said, via RacingNews365.

While the stakes weren’t high at Interlagos because Ferrari were in the lower reaches of the points, it seems Hamilton hasn’t learned his lesson.