An uncharacteristic mistake by the newly crowned F1 World Drivers’ Champion saw him fly sideways into the barriers and while he himself escaped unscathed, Mercedes were forced to make engine changes that incurred enough penalties to see him start from the pit lane.
Valtteri Bottas meanwhile showed that the Mercedes remains the best car on the grid by pipping Sebastian Vettel to pole position while the German’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen took third.
So with the title race wrapped up, can Bottas secure a third ever race win and how many places can Hamilton pick up from 20th?
Brazilian Grand Prix LIVE – latest updates from Interlagos
LAP 15
The pit stop window is expected to open at around Lap 22 by the way – and we will be one-stopping more than likely.
At the front, Bottas is staying within 2.5 seconds of Vettel but Mercedes think he’s managing the pace a bit.
LAP 12
Hamilton up to eighth and the back of Sergio Perez who of course has a Mercedes engine in there which might make things tricky.
The Mexican holds him off into Turn 1 but the Brit hangs it round the outside and finishes things off in Turn 2. Seventh place for the world champion now.
LAP 10
There isn’t really a two-stop on here because the difference in performance between the soft and the super-soft isn’t enough to make it workable. That said, tyre degredation is reasonably high and Nico Hulkenberg is being warned about his tyres.
LAP 8
Hamilton is scything his way through the field and is already up into the points! Remarkable stuff but hardly surprising. That Mercedes is an absolute beaut and it’s got a new engine in it which they hardly need to conserve very much.
LAP 6
The safety car is in and Vettel executes the restart perfectly. Massa overtakes Alonso in a move from the 2005 season, up to fifth.
Hamilton is also making moves and is up to 14th.
LAP 4
That’s so unlucky for Vandorne by the looks of things. He manages to pick his way through Turn 1 but Turn 2 sees him squeezed from both sides by Ricciardo and Magnussen. Bit gutted for the Belgian there.
LAP 2
Ocon is out of the race with two punctures meaning he can’t get it back to the pits. Grosjean is still running but his team-mate Kevin Magnussen is out, potentially after getting caught up with Ricciardo and Vandoorne.
No rain, no drama? Not likely…
LIGHTS OUT!
Vettel gets a great start and gets past Bottas into Turn 1 on the inside!
Ricciardo has gone spinning through the Senna S-Bend, Romain Grosjean and Esteban Ocon have collided too and we have a safety car after just half a lap.
4pm: Formation lap underway. Lights out will shortly follow…
3.57pm: Raikkonen is in the car, without a second to spare and the Ferrari engineers look slightly more relaxed. I think we’ll find out pretty quickly if there’s a problem but they’ve clarified on team radio that the car wasn’t really the problem.
“We saw an issue with the telemetry signal which looked a bit weak and then had problems connecting with the car,” his engineer says. Sounds less serious than anything else they’ve had before.
3.50pm: More problems on the grid for Ferrari! Unbelievable. Surely this can’t be happening again.
There are panels off the side of Kimi Raikkonen’s car and there are a few laptops hooked up to car as well as an electronic control box. They’ve got about seven minutes to fix it.
3.45pm: This is of course Felipe Massa’s last ever Brazilian Grand Prix – again. The veteran of more than 250 Grands Prix will finally hang up his helmet at the end of this season and he has been crying in the car on the way to the grid.
You can’t blame him. F1 has been part of his life for 15 years. Can he have an impact further forward today? You wouldn’t begrudge him a big points haul.
3.30pm: The pit lane is open, the cars are making their way round to the grid and we are 30 minutes away from the start of the Brazilian Grand Prix 2017.
There will be a Mercedes at either end of the grid – sort of. Hamilton will start from the pit lane after losing control of his Mercedes in Q1 and having to change a few engine elements to boot.
At the front, Bottas will have to hold off Vettel into Turn 1 although the straight-line speed of that Mercedes could make it hard for the Ferraris to keep pace with the Finn on the start-finish straight.
