Things didn’t go as planned for Lewis Hamilton and the Silver Arrows in the Singapore GP at Marina Bay in the past week. The seven-time world champion got off to a terrific start at Marina Bay by setting the fastest time in the opening practice. But he could not keep up his performance at the track, finishing the race in ninth place.
As a matter of fact, we cannot completely blame him for this disappointing result, as it was the Wolff team that did not listen to him.
Hamilton showcased a great performance in the qualifying session that earned him a P3 start on Sunday. However, he voiced his displeasure over the radio during the race regarding the selection of the tires, “I told you about these tires, in the future you need to listen to me–no grip.”
He later clarified, “I wanted to start with scrubbed [intermediates] and then I wanted to go to soft, I did the laps to the grid on the scrubbed inters and it was better. Then we put the [new] inters on and they were terrible–it took several laps for the temperatures to come up.”
“We can’t fire up our tyres as quick as the others for some reason, on slicks or wets. And we don’t really understand why. There’s something going on there in terms of temperatures because on a long run in the dry we’ve got good longevity,” he further added.
Even though the British driver started from P3, he quickly lost his place on the track. Eventually, Hamilton collided with the barriers while trying to go past Carlos Sainz on the 33rd lap, as he lacked grip. The rainy weather during the Singapore GP also made it tougher to get a proper grip.
On the track, it is important for the drivers to keep the tire temperature between 100°C-110ºC, as warm tires have more grip than cooler tires. Furthermore, as it is sometimes difficult to get the temperatures up for new tires, using a scrubbed inter can be helpful in wet conditions.
