Lewis Hamilton says he will not ‘punish himself’ for the mistake that ruined his Formula 1 race in Singapore.
While chasing Carlos Sainz, Hamilton slid straight ahead just halfway through the race and crashed into the guardrail.
He was able to start again, but his front wing was damaged, so he had to pit for a change. He managed to combine the stop with a switch to slicks, but the whole thing cost him a lot of time and dropped him from fourth to ninth place. He finally finished the race in the same position.
“From then on I knew it was over,” says Hamilton when asked about the mistake. “But things like that happen. I mean, I’m not going to punish myself for a mistake. It was very difficult conditions for everyone and I think our car’s problems are even more evident in the rain. It’s a very, very difficult car to be driven in the rain.”
Lewis Hamilton cannot explain departure
When asked if, like Max Verstappen, he lost control of the car by hitting the ground hard, he says: “I don’t know exactly. I’ll look at the data. I don’t want to blame it, but the car had a lot of ground contact and obviously it was blocked, so I don’t know where the blocking came from.”
Hamilton even thought at first that he had got away with no wing damage: “It felt normal for the first few corners, but then the sparks started flying and I think that’s when it just failed.”
Hamilton’s race began to go wrong from the start when he lost a position to Sainz at the first corner. He said over the radio that he had been pushed wide but insisted he hadn’t tried to force a penalty on the Spaniard.
Lewis Hamilton on the duel with Carlos Sainz
“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s racing. I only mentioned it because I didn’t want anyone to think I went off the track because there’s a bollard on the far right, but I actually got pushed off, that was the only reason.”
Sainz’s action meant Hamilton was stuck behind the Ferrari driver and he was frustrated when he lost contact with leaders Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc: “Yes, that was a difficult start and then obviously I was behind Carlos tight. I don’t know why he was so slow. But I wasn’t fast enough to get past him in these conditions and then I just sat behind him.”
“I think I could have set similar times as the guys in front of me, but because I was stuck behind him I couldn’t. I think if I’d been third I could have kept up,” said the Mercedes driver.
Lewis Hamilton on performance: “It’s a coincidence with this car”
Hamilton also explains his message to the team at the start of the race when he said: “I told you guys about these tires” and complained about the lack of grip: “I did my laps on the grid on a used one [Intermediate] and then pulled a new one [Intermediate] up and it was terrible.”
“It took a few laps for the temperatures to rise. And for some reason we can’t heat up our tires as fast as the others. Both the rain tires and the slicks. So we don’t really understand why. Maybe it’s the reason but also on the temperatures, because we have a good shelf life in the dry.”
When asked if he could still take something positive from the weekend, he says: “The car certainly had its moments this weekend when it wasn’t too bad, I think. With this car it’s a bit like coincidence .”
“I think there’s definitely something positive to be said for this weekend. It’s just a shame we didn’t get any real points for the team. It was maybe three but we’ll take it.”