Lewis Hamilton wants Ferrari to extract more performance from their cars during qualifying. The seven-time world champion gave a brutal but fair assessment of the Scuderia’s current predicament after defying late brake issues to limp home to an eighth-place finish at the Singapore Grand Prix.
The 40-year-old arrived in Singapore with aspirations of locking down his first podium in Ferrari colours, but after qualifying only sixth, one spot ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc, those hopes were extinguished.
Then, in the Grand Prix, both Ferrari cars struggled to keep contact with Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull ahead, before severe brake issues destroyed Hamilton’s race. His mammoth gap to Fernando Alonso was eliminated, and after crossing the line four-tenths ahead of the Aston Martin driver, he was hit with a five-second time penalty for track limit violations.
“The guys are pushing so hard each weekend,” Hamilton said after climbing out of the car. “I feel pain for all the team, from catering to marketing to the guys in the garage and engineers who show up every weekend, and they really do give absolutely everything.
“But the car we have, it’s just not at the level of the guys ahead of us, particularly as they’ve had some upgrades and we can’t match them, so we’re on a knife-edge trying to get as close as we can. I don’t know, I think there was potential for us to be further ahead this weekend.
“In qualifying, I think we’re still not extracting the full potential of the car. We didn’t in the last race, and again this weekend. I think there was potential to have been third or fourth on the grid this weekend, if we had perfected, extracted the tyre performance and not queued at the end of the pit lane, for example.
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“And in the race, we’re kind of on par pace-wise with at least a couple of cars ahead of u,s but obviously not quicker. So I think if we can get our qualifying fixed, which is very, very hard to do against these quick cars, then maybe we can get slightly better results but, ultimately, we’re still fighting for fourth, fifth, sixth at best.
“We’re currently limited, we’re really limited with rear end compared to the guys that have clearly taken the step and improved their rear. It’s all about how we extract in qualifying and if we can get the most out of the car. But at the moment we need to get 105 per cent out of the car to be able to beat the guys ahead, so that’s going to be tough.”
Hamilton now travels to Austin for the United States Grand Prix with just six opportunities left to end his podium drought before the end of the 2025 campaign. Ferrari are also in a difficult spot, as George Russell’s fifth career victory extended Mercedes’ Constructors’ Championship advantage to 25 points.