Future Scuderia Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has highlighted the Maranello team’s success on street circuits as a key example while acknowledging Marina Bay as a challenging venue for his current team Mercedes. Despite delivering one of his most iconic laps to secure pole at the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton described the track as a “bogey” for the German side, where struggles often overshadow their moments of triumph.
The seven-time Formula 1 world champion has secured pole position at Singapore twice, in 2014 and 2018, winning for Mercedes in 2014, 2017, and 2018, adding to his 2009 victory with McLaren. These achievements place him just one win shy of Sebastian Vettel’s record at the circuit.
However, mixed in with these victories are difficult outings in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023. Mercedes’ long-wheelbase design has historically proven ill-suited for the sharp, 90-degree turns of the street circuit. Lewis Hamilton pointed to Ferrari’s consistent success at the 4.94-kilometre Marina Bay Street Circuit as a contrast. The Italian team has taken pole position every year since 2017 (except in 2018) and has won the race in 2015, 2019, and 2023.
“I wouldn’t say that this has ever been a really great track for me,” – the future Ferrari driver explained on Thursday ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix – “It’s been a bit of bogey track for us with the way we design the cars and have designed cars, as if you look at a lot of street circuits, we’ve never been particularly strong, and at the more open circuits, are better. Look at us compared to Ferrari – mega in the last race [in Azerbaijan], and they’ll be strong this weekend, but there is a certain design that they have which seems to bode well for these circuits. Then we get to somewhere like Silverstone, where we are very strong, so there are a lot of good lessons to take from those, but ultimately when it comes to tracks like this, it is a struggle.” – the British driver concluded ahead of the Marina Bay weekend.
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