Lewis Hamilton “perfectly on the limit”: Reactions from the Top 3 in Singapore
Lewis Hamilton's anthology lap at the wheel of his Mercedes on the streets of Singapore dealt a blow to the morale of his rivals, particularly Sebastian Vettel, who was incredulously third. Max Verstappen placed his Red Bull in second position, between the two title contenders.
Barely recovered from his emotions, Lewis Hamilton was ecstatic when answering the traditional interview on the starting line of the Singapore circuit.
Sweating but happy, the Mercedes driver struggled to realize the blow he just dealt to Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel: « Of course, I want to thank the team, at the factory and here, everyone is working extremely hard to find the last tenths and I managed to do it all. I tried to push a little more on my second but it didn’t work out. I am overwhelmed with emotion, my heart is racing! Honestly, I don’t think there was a moment in that lap where I went wide or anything, it was perfectly on the limit. It’s one of the best laps I can remember. »
Max Verstappen would surely have been able to aim for the first pole position of his career if Lewis Hamilton hadn’t put in an incredible lap. But the Red Bull driver is nevertheless very satisfied with his second place, far ahead of his teammate Daniel Ricciardo: Honestly, it’s like a victory given the number of problems I’ve had today and even in qualifying, it wasn’t smooth, the power delivery was irregular. So the second place is incredible. It shows that we have an amazing car. We must ensure we have a clean start, and from there, anything is possible. We need to resolve the engine issues, but at least I’m very happy with the car.
Sebastian Vettel was very disappointed as he left his car. With a closed expression and a dark look, he still tried to analyze his performance in an interview with Martin Brundle: « It’s not ideal. We wanted the pole and we didn’t get it. The qualifying session was a bit messy for us and we lacked too much pace per lap, hence the third place. »
The German driver’s out laps were not easy. He often complained about his team’s poor timing in sending him out on the track. However, Vettel does not want to use this as an excuse to explain his underperformance: “It’s not ideal if we are racing on the out lap but there were a lot of slow cars. We can’t blame it on that, we had two laps and neither was good enough. It’s not what I wanted, nor what they wanted. The race is another story. For sure, I’m not happy with this day. The qualifying didn’t go as well as expected. Other drivers did better than us, and that’s why we are third,” concluded the Ferrari driver bitterly.
A supreme effort from @LewisHamilton sealed a 79th career pole 💪 #SingaporeGP 🇸🇬 #F1 pic.twitter.com/FkjtiEZeN2
— Formula 1 (@F1) 15 septembre /f1/actualite/22936-singapour-qualifications-magistral-hamilton-.html
