After several promising qualifying rounds, Lewis Hamilton is somewhat disappointed to be starting the Singapore Grand Prix from P6. The British veteran was in good shape in Q1, but as the sessions progressed, he lost a lot of time compared to his competitors. Although he did place ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, Hamilton is primarily concerned with Ferrari’s ‘suboptimal’ performance on Saturday.
For a moment, it seemed Hamilton could contend for pole position in Singapore, especially when he secured the fastest time in Q1. However, Ferrari’s competitiveness significantly fell back in the final phase. For the fifth time this year, he finished above Leclerc, although his deficit to polesitter and former teammate George Russell was over half a second. After the qualification, he mainly pointed to Ferrari’s execution.
“I enjoyed it,” Hamilton assured the press at the Marina Bay Street Circuit. “I’ve felt fit all weekend, I felt good in the car. During Q1, I felt very strong and thought – perhaps a bit naively – that we would be fighting for the first starting row,” he admitted. He explained what went wrong at Ferrari: “It’s just the way the plan unfolds – in the end, we’re waiting in the pit lane, losing temperature in the tires, and using up a tire on the outlap only to come back in again.”
Suboptimal Performance
“These are all things that need to be optimized,” Hamilton added. “We still have some work to do to improve these kinds of sessions.” When asked how Ferrari could solve this, Hamilton replied, “We will discuss it behind closed doors – have a conversation and improve the whole process. Everyone is working as hard as they can, but we also need to look at what others are doing better. Mercedes was up first; they didn’t lose any tire temperature and were leading,” he praised his former team.
“We chose to wait and park the car at the end of the pit lane,” he pointed out the difference with Ferrari. “Then we simply lose five or six degrees in the tires. That’s really hard to regain in a single outlap. In Q3, I drove a flawless lap, but we simply lost half a second due to the performance loss in the tires. That’s frustrating, but I will do my utmost again on Sunday,” he concluded optimistically.
