Drivers criticise 'bumpy' state of resurfaced Interlagos circuit

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Drivers have been critical of the state of Sao Paulo's Interlagos track, saying that the 4.3km circuit is "very bad" and so bumpy in parts that it was virtually undriveable.

The situation was exacerbated by heavy rain that started falling on Saturday afternoon after the sprint race, meaning wet conditions for qualifying and the Grand Prix on Sunday.

“In some places you could not even drive because you would bottom out quite heavily, even in the wet," reported race winner Max Verstappen afterward. “It was still very bad."

During Sunday's race, Verstappen told his team that he didn't want to risk driving off-line to cool his intermediate tyres because of the bumps.

“I know a lot of people put a lot of effort in it," Verstappen acknowledged. "It’s not to talk bad about the people, I know they always try to do the best they can to put the surface down.

"But for the cars that we are running currently, it’s definitely too bumpy,” he declared. “Something needs to be done about it.”

Read also: Pirelli's Isola sees no evidence of F1 tyre cooling trick

Alpine driver Esteban Ocon, who finished second on Sunday, found a silver lining to the new surface at Sao Paulo: “I think the grip is actually very good,” he said.

“It’s just some bumps that we run with these cars – probably if we were back in 2021 or 2020, it would have been fine – but these cars run super-low and all the hit is basically straight into the chassis.

"There’s no suspension in there," he explained. "It’s much better than it was in terms of grip, but just the bumps needs to be improved.”

McLaren's Lando Norris was in agreement. “The cars are made to be low. That is the regulation. The teams have to make them like that and therefore, other things have to change around it.

One of those things is the tracks, because how it was, especially [in practice], made things pretty difficult for everyone.

“The FIA know and they’re not happy with it either,” he added. “I know that they want to improve things for the future, and they work with us to try and do that.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.