Hamilton eyes battle with Verstappen for Singapore GP Pole: 'The car is good here'
Photo: Race Pictures
Updated:
0 Comments
Henry Eccles is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs, and features across the F1 calendar. Since joining in 2026, he has produced high-volume reporting on the sport’s biggest stories, alongside feature pieces including analysis and historical content.
Lewis Hamilton is confident he can battle long-time rival Max Verstappen for Pole Position at the Singapore GP. The Ferrari driver finished 2.5s behind the Dutchman following a chaotic Sprint Race in Singapore.
Despite a sluggish start to the Singapore GP weekend, with Hamilton only qualifying P6 and nearly six tenths down on Verstappen during Sprint Qualifying, the seven-time world champion has said Ferrari have the potential to fight for Pole.
Verstappen, meanwhile, is chasing his second Grand Prix Pole of the season, having secured his first at the Bahrain GP in Malaysia last weekend - a race he also won in convincing fashion.
Hamilton weighs up Pole battle with Verstappen
ADVERTISEMENT
Reflecting on his P2 finish in the Sprint, which also saw George Russell suffer a Lap 2 DNF, Hamilton was pleased with the quick progress the Scuderia have made over the hectic Sprint weekend, and weighed up a battle for Pole.
"I'm just really happy to have recovered from what was a bad Qualifying Three yesterday and I hope we can make the right calls so we can be more competitive in the next session," Hamilton said.
"I think we have the potential to fight with Max for the front row at least. Whether or not we can actually be ahead of them, we shall see, but I think the car is good here. You just need to nail it and get the set-up really right."
On his slow start to the weekend, Hamilton explained that Ferrari have had to "roll the dice" following a raft of set up changes after the sole practice session of the weekend.
"I think we were quiet out of bed at the start of P1. Normally, we start practice, we usually have a car in a good place, but it wasn't in a good place. We had to then make lots of changes, and then it's just rolling the dice.
ADVERTISEMENT
"And I think we were just massively over balanced in qualifying, but I I think we've learned from that, and I hope that, as I said, going into qualifying, we should be in a nice place."
Don’t miss GPblog in Google
Mark us as a preferred source and our articles will appear more often at the top of Top Stories.
Add as a preferred / source on Google