Ferrari drivers having to lift and coast at "every corner" in Brazil F1 sprint

After eventual winner Max Verstappen dived past polesitter Lando Norris into Turn 1 of the 24-lap Saturday race at Interlagos, almost the entire field then complained of having to manage temperatures.

While Charles Leclerc climbed from seventh to fifth place and Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz gained a spot to finish eighth, both were severely restricted by a need to jump off the throttle.

Sainz reckoned it was the most amount of lifting and coasting that he had ever faced after the pair completed the race on a used set of soft-compound Pirelli tyres.

He said: "We would use all the worst possible sets that we had available and we saved the good ones for [the Sunday grand prix] so hopefully this helps.

"But it will not be very positive if we need to keep doing so much lift and coast, which for our temperatures was very, very tricky. We simply couldn't push our race."

The Spaniard added that he also needed to back off when running in clean air, rather than just when following other cars.

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL60, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri AT04, Daniel Ricciardo, AlphaTauri AT04

It is also why Daniel Ricciardo was able to keep repassing the Ferrari, as Sainz was relying on DRS to compensate for his early braking.

He continued: "Hopefully, it goes in a better direction but today is the most lift and coast I've ever had to do.

"I was having to do so much lift and coast that I couldn't even push the braking, so I had to make sure I had DRS to at least be quick on the straights."

Team boss Frederic Vasseur said his drivers had been left "exposed" due to an error.

He revealed: "We made a small mistake on the cooling today and we asked the drivers to do a massive lift and cost from lap two."

Leclerc said he was backing off as "basically every corner" but hoped that starting second in the GP would take away some of the strain.

Although, he reckoned that the Saturday pace of the Red Bull meant it would be almost "irrelevant" to pass Verstappen off the line.

He said: "The cars are getting so fast now that you have to do these kinds of lifts off… But for sure, from my side, it was the worst [so far this year].

"If this is the pace of the cars, then I'm pretty sure that even if I pass him that's a bit irrelevant, because I think in two or three laps, he should be passing me."