Lewis Hamilton felt he had the pace to be able to challenge for the victory in Singapore before power issues saw the reigning World Champion retire from a Grand Prix for the first time in 2015 whilst running fourth.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver was happy with his pace and was keeping in touch with the three drivers ahead of him – Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen – despite running the supposedly slower Soft Pirelli tyre during the middle stint of the race while his rivals ran the Supersoft, and admitted it was disappointing to lose power and the chance of winning in Singapore.
“The race was going very well,” said Hamilton. “For me it felt like I was driving at my best in the race. I think I had the pace to win. I did everything.
“I was on the prime keeping up easily with the guys at the front on the option. My pace was really good when I started to lose power. I felt like the team was working as hard as they could and these kinds of things just happen.
“It’s unfortunate for the team as I was feeling real good out there, so optimistic. But it was better to retire and save the engine. We will work really hard on figuring out what it was but I am not worried about losing this engine.
“Our reliability is really high as we had an amazing season so far. It’s still a long way to go and I know I lost some points today, but I was fast and on form and I will make sure I bring that out to Suzuka to fight back!”
