Car 'came alive' in Singapore after poor qualifying runs - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says his qualifying form has been a struggle this year but that his car came alive as he managed to secure a top three start at the Singapore Grand Prix.

McLaren's Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen to pole position, with Hamilton qualifying third, just over 0.3s adrift of his fellow Brit. Hamilton says he was finding the handling of his car difficult throughout the weekend until qualifying started, but then had far more confidence and was able to threaten the higher positions.

“Oh man, qualifying has been a disaster for me all year long and I've just been working and working and working trying to get myself back up there, and all of a sudden the car came alive in qualifying for the first time in a long time,” Hamilton said. “It was a little bit of a shame because we were getting into rhythm -- it was the same for all of us, but getting that lap at the end was a little bit tricky.

“I think there was maybe a tiny bit more left in the car, but I'm really grateful for it. And the mechanics, we've been moving up and down on balance, we've changed everything this weekend on each day, and the mechanics have just been faultless, so I want to say a big thank you to them, and I hope that we're in a good position to fight for the front tomorrow.”

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Although Norris had a clear advantage, Hamilton was a little over 0.1s away from Verstappen’s time and he says if he had put together a better final lap he could have beaten the Red Bull.

“I'm not saying it's a surprise, but through the weekend so far, we were looking, well, I was looking particularly very poor," he said. "This morning and all of yesterday, we were 1.2s off these guys. We arrived with a car that was massively understeery, and we just couldn't dial anything in. No matter what we did, nothing changed.

“Made changes overnight, came here today, pretty much the same thing, and I was definitely shocked to see that we were still 1.2s behind Lando again. We just kept our heads down, kept not giving up, and we made some more changes and got into this session, and it was like night and day. Such a big difference.

“The car was all of a sudden alive, and I was able to go where I wanted to go. It was looking really strong throughout qualifying and I think [the crash in Q3 made it difficult] for all of us to put that final lap together.

“I think my lap was also nothing special -- very difficult to get the tires perfect and not overslide them. I had a lot of snaps, so I think with a better job, maybe we could have been front row ... but I don't know whether or not we could have beaten [Norris] today. Still really, really happy.”