Mercedes didn’t have enough grip to fight with Ferrari and Red Bull

Statistical enthusiasts were eagerly awaiting the Singapore qualifiers: was Lewis Hamilton going to match Ayrton Senna’s pole position record? Would Mercedes match Williams’ record?

Finally, the answer was no for both since the Mercedes were unable to keep up with the pace set by the Ferraris and even the Red Bulls. To see just how much the two drivers were making the most of the equipment at their disposal, just look at their times in Q2, where the drivers have to give it their all to ensure they make it to Q1: there’s only a three-thousandths of a second difference.

For Lewis Hamilton, the problem once again came from his Pirelli tires, which did not respond as he expected: « We don’t know why we weren’t fast enough today. It seems we weren’t using our tires like everyone else. We need to see what happened. We haven’t lost performance on the car compared to two weeks ago, but the guys in front of us were simply too fast. »

Same sentiment from Nico Rosberg, who seemed already disillusioned during his radio communications even before Q3 was finished. With his engineers, he tried different types of settings, without success: « *I tried different things but we don’t know why we are so slow this weekend. It’s strange because until now, we had been fast on all circuits. Coming to Singapore now and seeing the difference with the fastest cars is really not good.* »

His main goal will therefore be to surpass his teammate in an attempt to reduce a championship gap that has reached 53 points following his retirement from Monza. But he knows it will be difficult to climb back to the podium, especially on an urban circuit like Singapore: “Above all, I will work to get past Lewis. It is very important for me to finish ahead of him. It seems that the cars in front are also much faster with a full tank of fuel from what we saw on Friday.”

Toto Wolff, the team principal, therefore expects a tough race: « Now we will focus on a difficult race tomorrow night. On a circuit that is so tough on the cars and the drivers and where it is very difficult to overtake, we must not expect miracles. It will be a day to limit the damage. »