Hamilton was running in P18 when Ferrari called him into the garage on lap 38.

Vasseur said: “When you are last and you are missing 35 points or 40 points on the car, I'm not sure that it makes sense to damage the engine, so we save the penalty and we stop the car.”

Having lost places at the start after touching wheels with Carlos Sainz at the first corner, Hamilton suffered damage to his SF-25 when he collided with Franco Colapinto later on in lap one.

The Briton misjudged the distance ahead when he ducked under the slipstream of Colapinto’s Alpine, causing him to lose his front wing, which lodged itself under his Ferrari and caused damage to his bodywork.

With Charles Leclerc also retiring from the race, following a dramatic turn one incident at the safety car restart, Ferrari suffered a dismal double DNF in Brazil.

Vasseur said: “It is difficult to take positives when you have double DNF.

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