Lewis Hamilton was feeling downbeat after a difficult outing at the Singapore Grand Prix
Toto Wolff apologised to Lewis Hamilton over the team radio after the Singapore Grand Prix. The Brit was left fuming with his tyre strategy during a difficult outing in the Marina Bay heat.
Hamilton qualified in P3 on Saturday, finishing ahead of team-mate George Russell on a Saturday for just the fifth time this season, but the seven-time world champion’s Grand Prix was far less straightforward.
Mercedes made the decision to start the Brit on soft-compound tyres with the majority of the field on mediums. He was unable to make inroads on second-placed Max Verstappen at the start, and quickly started to struggle with his Pirelli rubber.
With George Russell waiting patiently behind in P4, Mercedes made the call to bring Hamilton into the pit lane on lap 18, long before the rest of the frontrunners. From here, the 39-year-old complained about the extreme tyre offset and performance of his W15 machine.
At the end of the chequered flag Hamilton was down from third on the starting line to sixth position on the road with Russell as well as Piastri and Leclerc following him all of whom started from P9.
After the race, team principal Wolff said sorry. “For yes Lewis sorry” He said over the radio. We gave you a car that was just not good enough here and obviously, we read the race wrong, but honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered. We were just slow today.”
Another calming input came from race engineer Peter Bonnington to his driver. “Lewis mate that’s P6,” he said to me. That tyre gamble really worked against us there.
Mercedes will be alarmed by huge performance difference between them and McLaren. The Silver Arrows had three wins in four races earlier in the summer, and Norris was on top form on Sunday.
The 24-year-old was more than 20 seconds clear of the rest of the field as he claimed his third grand prix victory, slashing Max Verstappen’s championship lead to 52 points.