After eventual winner Max Verstappen dived past polesitter Lando Norris into Turn 1 of the 24-lap Saturday race at Interlagos, almost the entire field then complained of having to manage temperatures.
While Charles Leclerc climbed from seventh to fifth place and Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz gained a spot to finish eighth, both were severely restricted by a need to jump off the throttle.
Sainz reckoned it was the most amount of lifting and coasting that he had ever faced after the pair completed the race on a used set of soft-compound Pirelli tyres.
He said: "We would use all the worst possible sets that we had available and we saved the good ones for [the Sunday grand prix] so hopefully this helps.
"But it will not be very positive if we need to keep doing so much lift and coast, which for our temperatures was very, very tricky. We simply couldn't push our race."
The Spaniard added that he also needed to back off when running in clean air, rather than just when following other cars.
Source: Autosport