Hamilton retires from Spanish GP after brake pedal fails to the floor at Madrid

Lewis Hamilton was retired from the Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid’s Madring circuit in the early laps on Sunday after a brake failure made it impossible to continue safely, Ferrari confirmed.

Hamilton had been running in contention for third place, battling Max Verstappen, when his brake pedal began to travel further than normal on the first lap. Ferrari initially attempted to manage the problem remotely, adjusting settings from the pit wall, but the issue returned moments later and the team pulled the seven-time world champion in to retire the car.

“It was really unexpected,” Hamilton said. “I was braking for Turn 5 on the first lap and the car was stopping normally. And then the pedal took a step, and I ended up carrying loads of speed into the corner because it didn’t stop as well. And then it came back fine in the next corner, and I thought we’d be fine. And then all of a sudden the pedal just went fully to the end, so I was lucky to make it round.”

The Madring’s 5.4km layout is lined with walls throughout, leaving Ferrari with little appetite for keeping Hamilton on track once the failure recurred. Team principal Fred Vasseur said the decision to retire the car was straightforward given the circumstances.

“We tried to fix it from the pit wall and then it happened again a couple of corners later,” Vasseur said. “Staying on track made no sense in a crazy race. We didn’t want to take any risk.”

Vasseur suggested Hamilton had the underlying pace to challenge near the front, pointing to teammate Charles Leclerc’s performance as a benchmark, but acknowledged that the race’s character made overtaking largely irrelevant regardless. “It’s more a matter of track position. Honestly, it was mega difficult to overtake today,” he said.

Ferrari said the investigation into the root cause of the brake failure is ongoing.