Lewis Hamilton believes Ferrari has the potential to fight for victory in the Singapore Grand Prix after finishing second in a chaotic Sprint Race at Marina Bay. The seven-time world champion came home behind Max Verstappen and ahead of Charles Leclerc, giving Ferrari an encouraging result after a difficult Sprint Qualifying session.
“When I saw the black sky, I immediately went on alert,” Lewis Hamilton said as he recalled the moments before the start of the Singapore Sprint. It proved to be an eventful and far from short race, with delays, red flags and incidents all playing a part. Amid the overall chaos, Max Verstappen emerged victorious, followed by Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, who helped Ferrari recover from a less-than-perfect qualifying session.
Lewis Hamilton explains why he could not attack Max Verstappen
After the opening laps, Lewis Hamilton closed significantly on the Red Bull ahead but never found a genuine opportunity to launch an attack. The difficult wet conditions left very little room for manoeuvre around Marina Bay, despite the Ferrari driver initially being able to stay close to Max Verstappen.
“I had a fantastic start, I love driving on this track, especially when it rains. I tried to stay close to Max without burning out the tyres, so I wasn’t pushing that hard. When I got close enough, I realised I wouldn’t be able to overtake. There was only one line available, I moved away and the front-right started to overheat. Towards the end it settled down, but it is still difficult to take risks,” Lewis Hamilton told David Coulthard.
The result nevertheless continued an encouraging Singapore weekend for the Briton, who arrived at Marina Bay with several factors potentially working in Ferrari’s favour. His record at the circuit and the characteristics of the SF-26 had already provided reasons for optimism ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix.
Ferrari hopes Sprint data can improve the SF-26
Ferrari will now use the data collected during the Sprint to try to fine-tune the SF-26, which had not performed particularly well the previous day. The importance of finding the right baseline set-up has been heightened by Singapore’s Sprint format, with Ferrari having only limited practice time to prepare the car for the demanding Marina Bay street circuit. Fred Vasseur had already highlighted the need to maximise every Singapore session before the weekend began.
On a circuit where power-unit performance is less decisive than at many other venues, Ferrari has an opportunity to score heavily, although the set-up has not worked as well as hoped so far. Lewis Hamilton nevertheless believes strongly in the potential of the car beneath him.
“We have a good car. If we sort out qualifying, we can cause problems for Red Bull and Mercedes. Starting at the front here is a big advantage,” Lewis Hamilton admitted.
That makes qualifying execution particularly important for Ferrari. The differences between Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and their rivals through the decisive qualifying segments can be examined in the F1 Qualifying Pace & Sector Comparison, including sector performance and the gaps recorded through each stage of the session.
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