Lewis Hamilton just said what every Ferrari fan has been hoping to hear before the Singapore GP.
Lewis Hamilton thinks Ferrari has what it takes to win the Singapore Grand Prix. He also says the team has learned from the strategy mistakes they made at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
In Malaysia, Hamilton finished third, even though he fell as far back as 18th place after Ferrari put him on dry tyres at the start while others were on intermediates. Team radio messages later showed that Hamilton wasn’t sure about the dry tyres at first, telling his race engineer that the track was still too wet. Still, he stayed out on worn soft tyres during a safety car period when others pitted, which helped him move up the field.
After the Malaysia race, Hamilton said he believed Ferrari’s race pace could have put them in a close fight with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen if not for the strategy mistake. While in Singapore for the next race, the 41-year-old thinks their strong pace will help again on the Marina Bay Street Circuit this weekend.
“Our car usually does well on street circuits, especially when there aren’t long straights,” he said. “In recent races, we’ve been quick through corners but not so much on the straights.”
According to F1 data analyst F1GuyDan, Singapore is one of the tracks where drivers spend the least time at full throttle. As of the 2023 season, only 47% of the lap at Marina Bay was at full throttle, compared to Mexico at 43% and Monaco at 41%. On the other hand, Monza had the highest at 70%.
Hamilton was asked again about the dry tyre error in Malaysia and defended the team in his answer. “For some reason, our team gets way more criticism than others,” he said. “McLaren made the same call and no one really said anything. It was a mistake, yes, but it wasn’t just down to the strategists. The decision comes from all of us working together—Fred [Vasseur, team principal], Matteo [Togninalli, head of trackside engineering], me, and my engineer. We all discuss and share ideas before making a call. Everyone tries their best. It wasn’t good enough this time, and we’ve had a big talk about it. We want to do better and make more consistent decisions moving forward.”
This weekend, Singapore will have a sprint race on Saturday at 10 am UK time, with qualifying at 2 pm, and the main race on Sunday at 1 pm.