Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton was disappointed to miss out on pole position during Qualifying at the 2026 F1 Singapore GP, settling for P3 behind Max Verstappen and teammate Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen took home his first pole position at the Marina Bay Circuit, and tomorrow marks his chance at winning in Singapore for the first time in his career.
Lewis Hamilton spoke in the press conference about his Qualifying session at the 2026 F1 Singapore GP.
Hamilton on Qualifying at 2026 F1 Singapore GP — “I’m grateful to be third”
During Q3 of Qualifying, Hamilton achieved the fastest middle sector on his first flying lap, enough for a provisional P2 start position. Unfortunately, most drivers — including Hamilton — failed to improve on their final flying lap.
One driver who did improve was Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who improved up to P2, denying Hamilton a front row start at tomorrow’s Singapore GP.
Hamilton expressed that the attempted to add more turns of front wing for his Q3 run, affecting his balance during the final Qualifying session. Big snaps and understeer in Sectors 1 and 3 cost him P1 on the first run, which would have been enough for pole.
“I think it’s just balance. The car felt good. I think my team, the engineers, did a fantastic job, as well as the mechanics between the sessions.
“I think the car felt amazing in Q1 and Q2. When I finished the laps, I was like, ‘she’s got more in her.’ The only way in order to try and extract that is to try and add wing. And I think in doing so, I think it just tipped it over the edge. It was only like one hole or something like that, but it was just on the knifepoint. And after that, then the car was just snappy.
“None of the laps in Q3 were any good. I’m grateful to be third, to be honest, given that those laps weren’t very good.”
Plans for tomorrow’s race
Speaking on tomorrow’s race, Hamilton expressed hope that the right side of the grid will give him an advantage off the line.
With two Ferrari’s starting in the top three, Hamilton is hoping Ferrari can apply pressure to Verstappen, denying the Dutchman his maiden win in Singapore.
“The right side is hopefully a little bit better to start on. It’s a short start. The start that I had was in the wet, so it’s much different when it’s dry — and I think tomorrow is dry. It’ll be very hard for us to beat Max [Verstappen] tomorrow, but there’s two Ferraris there.
“And there might be opportunities for us to work together to try and apply the pressure. They’re [Red Bull] very, very quick. But I think we have the car in a good place that hopefully we can at least hold on.”
