Lewis Hamilton has insisted he retains complete trust in Ferrari despite a costly pit-stop decision in Singapore, while vowing to keep challenging the team to improve. The 41-year-old failed to respond to a call to enter the pits during the last race, a mistake that cost Ferrari a double podium finish and left Hamilton sixth.
Hamilton explains Singapore error
Speaking ahead of this weekend's United States Grand Prix, Hamilton repeated his contrition over the blunder, which he had already admitted immediately after the race. He explained the split-second decision that led to the error: "I was coming towards the pit lane entry and I didn't know Charles [Leclerc] was coming in, because he had just recently stopped. It was a split-second decision that I decided to stay out."
"As soon as I was alongside the pit lane I realised that it was probably the wrong decision. But I took responsibility, I owned up to it and we move on."
Commitment to challenge Ferrari
Hamilton revealed that clear-the-air talks have taken place behind the scenes, though he stressed the working relationship remains unchanged. He said: "We've had good conversations in the background about how we can work better together, how we can collaborate better, but I think that nothing has changed about how well we work together in the background."
"I truly believe my job is, rather than to follow suit always, is to continuously challenge the team, myself included, and to challenge the norms. That is ultimately how I've got to where I am and I won't shy away from that."
"Sometimes it doesn't go well, and that was one of those, but we live to fight another day. We win and we lose as a team, so we carry the weight and the costs together. It definitely hurts when I lose points for the team, and it's not something I do very often, so I'll double the efforts to ensure that doesn't happen again."
Reflecting on the aftermath
The error weighed heavily on Hamilton in the days following the race, as he acknowledged: "I think you learn from these experiences, so it's rare that I find myself in that position. Of course, the next couple of days didn't feel so great, but you live and you learn."
Hamilton started the Singapore race third, behind team-mate Leclerc and pole-sitter Max Verstappen, who had won the sprint race from the front of the grid a day earlier. That context pushed Hamilton to consider alternative strategies in pursuit of victory: "When I was lining up on the grid and I knew I was going to be third, I'm always looking at ways to win and looking at potentially doing something different. I wanted to be on a different strategy, not just the same strategy as Charles where we just follow each other."
"Ultimately, we saw that Max would be potentially quicker and the strategy just showed us finishing second and third, and that's not enough for me. I wanted to have options and see what could be possible. If the medium tyre could last longer, then maybe you could go deeper into the race, but it wasn't the case when I got going."
"It didn't feel great for the first stint and then, obviously, coming up behind Charles and losing a lot of time, because Charles was on a slower tyre at the beginning and I had the pace on the soft, it was a bit of a similar scenario maybe to Zandvoort."
