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The second half of Lewis Hamilton's final Mercedes Formula 1 season has descended into a "devastating" run of bad races that reached its lowest ebb in the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Hamilton's 10th place, after a shock Q1 exit and a frustrating race that ended with a long final stint stuck between RB driver Liam Lawson and Red Bull's Sergio Perez, is a far cry from the mid-season peak of two wins in three grands prix.
And when it was put to him by The Race that, with Mercedes still struggling with an inconsistent car and not being as fast as the top three teams, he may be keen to get to the end of a season that is clearly not ending well, Hamilton replied: "No, it can't come soon enough."
Hamilton is preparing to leave Mercedes after 11 seasons to join Ferrari next year. Although he ended a win drought of more than two years at the British Grand Prix in July, then won again in Belgium a few weeks later, it has not been the farewell campaign he or the team were hoping for.
Mercedes has slipped back from its mid-season peak and is a distant fourth in the constructors' championship. In Brazil, Hamilton was nowhere at one his favourite races, finishing a point-less 11th in the sprint and scoring just the one in the grand prix.
There's unsurprisingly no great desire to perform a public post-mortem, but Hamilton is pointing to limitations in the car each time.
He described the race as "crap", said "let's not talk about the car, because you know the car is no good", and summed up the weekend by saying: "Yesterday was terrible, today was terrible. Yesterday was bad, qualifying was bad, the sprint race was bad. The car's just been bad all weekend."
The only bright spot was driving Ayrton Senna's 1990 McLaren MP4/5 - an experience Hamilton clearly relished. That was a break from the monotony of another weekend of struggle, one exacerbated by the gap to team-mate George Russell.
Mercedes still seemed in no man's land in the dry, so Russell could only manage sixth in the sprint, but he led the first part of a wet Brazilian GP before finishing fourth.
He would likely have been on the podium without the mid-race red flag that gave Max Verstappen and the two Alpines a free change of tyres.
Hamilton was nowhere near this fight in one of his worst weekends of the season in terms of both pace and results.
His qualifying issues have become even more pronounced this side of the summer break - he's started 14th or lower in four of the seven grands prix in this run - and he’s earned a best finish of fourth. Two races ago in the US he was out in Q1 and then spun into the gravel on the second lap.
"It's devastating to have these bad races in the second half of the season," said Hamilton.
"But all I can say is we're trying. It's definitely not acceptable, it's definitely not good enough. And we have to take accountability, I have to take accountability.
"But I am doing the best with what I've got. The car has been the worst this weekend. I don't know what it is, we're going to have to find out what it is."
Not for the first time, Hamilton alluded to a difference in the quality of the equipment at Mercedes.
When he said "one of the cars is working a lot better, so there's obviously potential there", it sounded similar to comments earlier this year about how his pace would mysteriously disappear come qualifying, even if he's been faster than Russell in practice.
Hamilton said in Brazil "I'll give you a million dollars" if anyone had the answer for why he keeps struggling with the car and feeling bereft of confidence. But he doesn't sound like someone expecting things to change over the last three races.
Perhaps there is a fundamental incompatibility with his final Mercedes, this era of car, this type of tyre. Judging by his disappointment, that air of resignation about the situation, and his eagerness for the year to end, it may also have just become that little bit harder to get the last drops of performance that the car does have to offer.
He certainly doesn't care about the championship standings, which is a good thing as, having dropped to seventh, he is on for the worst result of his career.
"I just want to keep the car out the wall and try to score points if I can for the team," Hamilton said of his motivation for the run-in.
"If I can finish well and they give me a car that doesn't bounce off the track in the next few races, then hopefully we get a better result.
"Looking forward to Christmas."
Hamilton wanted to end on a high but if now he just wants it to end, that's not going to be getting the best out of driver or team.
